The bondboy

The Bondboy

George W. Ogden

THE BONDBOY

/>'// (/. II'. Oydcn

Trail's F.n.l

Claim Number One

The Land of ].i\>l Chance

The Ru.-tler of \Viiul River

Tlie Duke of ('.liiinney Unite

The Floekmaster of Poi-uii Creek

CHICAGO

A. C. McCLURG & CO.

1922

Copyright

A. C. McClurg & Co.
1922

Published October, 1922

Copyrighted in Great Britain

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I Delivered Into Bondage 1

II A Dry-Salt Man 21

III The Spark in the Clod 47

IV A Stranger at the Gate 66

V The Secret of the Clover 84

VI Blood 99

VII Deliverance 114

VIII Will He Tell? 126

IX The Scaled Envelope 152

X Let Him Hang 136

XI Peter's Son 171

XII The Sunbeam on the Wall 188

XIII Until the Day Break 210

XIV Deserted 228

XV The State vs. Newbolt 241

XVI "She Cometh Not" He Said 249

XVII The Blow of a Friend 259

XVIII A Name and a Message 276

XIX The Shadow of a Dream 304

XX "The Penalty Is Death!" 311

XXI Ollic Speaks 325

XXII A Summons of the Night 341

XXIII Lest I Forget . 359

2137502

The Bondboy

CHAPTER I

DELIVERED INTO BONDAGE

SARAH NEWBOLT enjoyed in her saturnine, brood
ing way the warmth of April sunshine and the stirring
greenery of awakening life now beginning to soften the brown
austerity of the dead winter earth. Beside her kitchen wall
the pink cones of rhubarb were showing, and the fat buds
of the lilacs, which clustered coppicelike in her door3'ard,
were ready to unlock and flare forth leaves. On the porch
with its southern exposure she sat in her low, splint-bottomed
rocker, leaning forward, her elbows on her knees.

The sun tickled her shoulders through her linsey dress,
and pictured her, grotesquely foreshortened, upon the nail-
drawn, warped, and beaten floor. Her hands, nursing her
cheeks, chin pivoted in their palms, were large and toil-
distorted, great- jointed like a man's, and all the feminine
softness with which nature had endowed her seemed to have
been overcome by the masculine cast of frame and face which
the hardships of her life had developed.

She did not seem, crouched there like an old cat warm
ing herself in the first keen fires of spring, conscious of any
thing about her ; of the low house, with its battered eaves,
the sprawling rail-fence in front of it, out of which the gate
was gone, like a tooth ; of the wild bramble of roses, or the
generations of honeysuckle which had grown, layer upon

1

The Hondboy

layer — the under stratum all dead and brown — over the
decaying arbor which led up to the cracked front door. She
did not seem conscious that time and poverty had wasted
the beauties of that place; that shingles were gone from
the outreaching eaves, torn away bv March winds; that
stones had fallen from the chimney, squatting broad-shoul
dered at the weathered gable; that panes were missing from
the windows, their places supplied by boards and tacked-on
cloth, or that pillows crowded into them, making it seem a
house that stopped its ears against the unfriendly things
which passengers upon the highway might speak of it.

Time and poverty were pressing upon Sarah Newbolt
also, relaxing there that bright hour in the sun, straying
away from her troubles and her vexations like an autumn
butterrlv among the golden leaves, unmindful of the frost
which soon must cut short its day. For, poor as she was
in all that governments put imposts upon, and men list in
tax returns and carry to steel vaults to hoard away, Sarah
Newbolt had her dreams. She had no golden past; there
was no golden future ready before her feet. There was no
review for her in those visions of happy davs and tender
memories, over which a woman half closes her eyes and smiles,
or over the incense of which a man's heart softens. Behind
her stretched a wake of turbulence and strife; ahead of her
lay the banked clouds of an unsettled and insecure future.

But she had her dreams, in which even the poorest of
us may indulge when our taskmaster in the great brick
works of this hot and heavy world is not hard by and press
ing us forward with his lash. She had her dreams of what
never was and never could be ; of old longings, old heart-
hungers, old hopes, and loves which never had corne near
for one moment's caress of her toil-hardened hand. Dreams
which roved the world and soothed the ache in her heart by
their very extravagance, which even her frugal conscience

Delivered Into Bondage

could not chide ; dreams which drew hot tears upon her
cheeks, to trickle down among her knotted fingers and tinc
ture the bitterness of things unrealized.

The crunch of wheels in the road now startled her from
her profitless excursions among the mist of visions and
dreams. She lifted her head like a cow startled from her
peaceful grazing, for the vehicle had stopped at the gap
in the fence where the gate should have stood warder be
tween its leaning posts.

" Well, he's come," said she with the resignation of one
who finds the long expected and dreaded at hand.

A man got out of the buggy and hitched his horse to one
of the old gate-posts, first trying it to satisfy himself that
it was trustworthy, for stability in even a post on those
premises, where everything was going to decay, seemed un
reasonable to expect. He turned up the path, bordered by
blue flags, thrusting their swordpoints through the ground,
and strode toward the house, with that uncouth giving at
the knees which marks a man who long has followed the
plow across furrowed fields.

The visitor was tall and bony, brown, dry-faced, and
frowning of aspect. There was severity in every line of his
long, loose body; in the hard wrinkles of his forehead, in
his ill-nurtured gray beard, which was so harsh that it
rasped like wire upon his coat as he turned his head in quick
appraisement of his surroundings. His feet were bunion-
distorted and lumpy in his great coarse shoes ; coarse black
hair grew down upon his broad, thick-jointed hands; a
thicket of eyebrows presented, like a chevaux-de-frise, bris
tling when he drew them down in his peering squint.

Sarah Newbolt rose to meet him, tall in the vigor of her
pioneer stock. In her face there was a malarial smokiness
of color, although it still held a trace of a past brightness,
and her meagcrness of feature gave her mouth a set of de-

The Rondboi/

termination which stood like a false index at the beginning
of a book or a misleading sign upon a door. Her eves were
Mack, her brows small and delicate. Back from her narrow
forehead she had drawn her plentiful dark hair in rigid
unloveliness ; over it she wore a knitted shawl.

"Well, Mr. Chase, you've come to put us out, I reckon?"
said she, a little tremor in her chin, although her voice was
steady and her eyes met his with an appeal which lay too
near the soul for words.

Isom Chase drew up to the steps and placed one knotted
foot upon them, standing thus in silence a little while, as
if thinking it over. The dust of the highroad was on his
broad black hat, and gray upon his grizzly beard. In the
attitude of his lean frame, in the posture of his foot upon
the step, he seemed to be asserting a mastery over the place
which he had invaded to the sad dispersion of Sarah Xew-
bolt's dreams.

4% I hate to do it," he declared, speaking hurriedly, as if
he held words but frail vehicles in a world where deeds
counted with so much greater weight, "but I've been easy
on vou, ma'am ; no man can say that I haven't been easy."

''I know vour monev's long past due," she sighed, "but
if vou was to give Joe another chance, Mr. Chase, we could
pav you off in time."

"Oh, another chance, another chance!" said he im
patiently. "What could you do with all the chances in
the world, you and him — what did your husband ever do
with his chances? lie had as many of 'em as I ever did,
and what did he ever do but scheme away his time on fool
things that didn't pan out when he ought 'a' been in the
field! Xo, you and Joe couldn't pay back that loan, ma'am,
not if I was to give you forty years to do it in."

"Well, maybe not," said she, drawing a sigh from the
well of her sad old heart.

Delivered Into Bondage

" The interest ain't been paid since Peter died, and that's
more than two years now," said Chase. " I can't sleep on
mv rights that way, ma'am ; I've got to foreclose to save
myself."

" Yes, you've been easy, even if we did give you up our
last cow on that there inter-est," she allowed. " You've
been as kind and easy over it, I reckon, Mr. Chase, as a
body could be. Well, I reckon me and Joe we'll have to
leave the old place now."

" Lord knows, I don't see what there is to stay for ! " said
Chase feelingly, sweeping his eyes around the wired-up, gone-
to-the-devil-looking place.

" When a body's bore children in a place," she said
earnestly, " and nusscd 'em, and seen 'em fade away and
die ; and when a body's lived in a house for upward of forty
years, and thought things in it, and everything —

" Bosh ! " said Isom Chase, kicking the rotting step.

" I know it's all shacklety now," said she apologetically,
" but it's home to me and Joe ! "

Her voice trembled over the words, and she wiped her
eyes with the corner of her head-shawl ; but her face re
mained as immobile as features cast in metal. When one
has wept out of the heart for years, as Sarah Newbolt had
wept, the face is no longer a barometer over the tempests
of the soul.

Isom Chase was silent. He stood as if reflecting his com
ing words, trying the loose boards of the siding with his
blunt thumb.

" Peter and I, we came here from Kentucky," said she,
looking at him with a sidelong appeal, as if for permission
to speak the profitless sentiments of her heart, " and people
was scarce in this part of Missouri then. I rode all the
way a-horseback, and I came here, to this very house, a
bride."

6 The Bondboy

"I didn't take a mortgage on sentiment — I took it on
the land," said Chase, out of humor with this reminiscent
history.

" You can't understand how I feel, Mr. Chase," said she,
dropping her arms at her sides hopelessly. "Peter — he
planted them laylocks and them roses."

"Better 'a' planted corn — and tended to it!" grunted
Chase. "Well, you can gruh 'em all up and take 'em away
with you, if you want 'em. They don't pay interest — I
suppose you've found that out."

" Not on money," said she, reaching out her hand toward
a giant lilac with a caressing, tender air.

" Sit down," said he in voice of command, planting him
self upon the porch, his hack against a post, " and let's
you and I have a little talk. Where do you expect to go
when you leave here; what plans have you got for the
future? "

" Lord, there's not a clap-hoard in this world that I can
poke my head under and lay claim to its shelter!" said
she, sitting again in her low rocker, shaking her head sadly.

" Your hoy Joe, he'll not he ahle to command man's wages
for three or four years vet," said Chase, studying her averted
face as if to take possession of even her thoughts. " He'll
not be ahle to do much toward supportin' you, even if he
could light on to a steady, all-the-year job, which he can't,
the way times is."

" No, I don't reckon he could," said she.

"And if I was to let you two stay on here I wouldn't be
any nearer lx>in' paid back that four hundred dollar loan
in two or three years than I am now. It's nearly five
hundred now, with the interest pilin' up, and it'll be a thou
sand before you know it. It'd take that boy a lifetime to
pay it off."

" Peter failed," she nodded ; " it was a burden on him that

Delivered Into Bondage

hackled him to the grave. Yes, I reckon you're right. But
there's no tellin' how Joe he'll turn out, Mr. Chase. He may
turn out to be a better manager than his pap was."

"How old is he?" asked Chase.

" Most nineteen," said she, some kind of a faraway hope,
indefinable and hazy, lifting the cloud of depression which
had fallen over her, " and he's uncommon big and stout for
his age. Maybe if you'd give Joe work he could pay it off,
interest and all, by the time he's twenty-one."

"Not much need for him," said Chase, shaking his head,
"but I might — well, I might figure around so I could take
him over, on certain conditions, you understand? It all de
pends on your plans. If you haven't anywhere to go when
you leave this house, you're bound to land on the county."

"Don't tell me that, Mr. Chase — don't tell me that!"
she begged, pressing her battered hands to her eyes, rocking
and moaning in her chair.

" What's the use of puttin' the truth back of you when
you're bound to come face up to it in the end?" he asked.
" I was talkin' to Judge Little, of the county court, about you
this morning. I told him I'd have to foreclose and take
possession of this forty to save myself.

" ' It'll throw her and that boy on the county,' he says.
* Yes, I reckon it will,' I told him, * but no man can say I've
been hard on 'em.' '

" Oh, you wouldn't throw me on the county at the end
of my days, Mr. Chase!" she appealed. "Joe he'll take care
of me, if you'll only give him a chance — if you'll only give
him a chance, Mr. Chase ! "

" I meant to take that up with you," said he, " on the
conditions I spoke of a minute ago."

He turned to her, as if for her consent to give expression
to his mysterious terms. She nodded, and he went on:

" In the winter time, ma'am, to tell you the plain truth,

8 The Bondboy

Joe wouldn't be worth wages to me, and in the summer not
very much. A boy that si/c and age eats his head oil', you
might sav.

" But I'll make YOU this offer, out of consideration of
my friendship for Peter, and your attachment for the old
place, and all of that shift': I'll take Joe over, under writ
ing, till lie's twenty-one, at ten dollars a month and all found,
winter and summer through, and allow you to stay right on
here in the house, with a couple of acres for your chickens
and garden patch and your posies and all the things you
set store on and pri/c. I'll do this for you. Missis Xewbolt,
but I wouldn't do it for any other human being alive."

She turned slowly to him, an expression of mingled amaze
ment and fear on her face.

'"You mean that you want me to bind Joe out to you till
he's his own man?" said she.

"Well, some call it by that name," nodded Chase, "but it's

nothing more than any apprenticeship to any trade, except

— oh, well, there ain't no difference, except that there's few

trades that equal the one the boy '11 learn under me, ma'am."

"You're askin' me to bind my little son — my only child
left to me of all that I bore — you want me to bind him out
to you like a nigger slave!"

Her voice fell away to a whisper, unable to bear the horror
that grew into her words.

"Better boys than him have been bound out in this neigh
borhood!" said Chase sharply. "If you don't want to do it,
don't do it. That's all I've got to say. If you'd rather go
to the poorhousc than sec your son in steady and honorable
employment, in a good home, and learning a business under
a man that's made some success of it, that's your lookout,
not mine. But that's where you'll land the minute you set
your foot out in that road. Then the county court'll take
your boy and bind him out to somebody, and you'll have no

Delivered Into Bondage 9

word to say in the matter, at all. But you can suit yourself."

"It — kind of — shook me," she muttered, the mother-
love, the honor and justice in her quailing heart shrinking
back before the threat of that terrible disgrace — the poor-
house.

The shadow of the poorhouse had stood in her way for
years. It had been the fear of Peter when he was there, and
his last word was one of thankfulness to the Almighty that
he had been permitted to die in a freeman's bed, under his
own humble roof. That consolation was to be denied her ;
the shadow of the poorhouse had advanced until it stood now
at her door. One step and it would envelop her ; the taint
of its blight would wither her heart.

Sarah Newbolt had inherited that dread of publicly con
fessed poverty and dependence. It had come down to her
through a long line of pioneer forebears who feared neither
hardship, strife nor death, so that it might come to them
without a master and under the free sky. Only the dis
graced, the disowned, the failures, and the broken-minded
made an end in the poorhouse in those vigorous days. It
was a disgrace from which a family never could hope to rise
again. There, on the old farm with Peter she had been poor,
as poor as the poorest, but thev had been free to come and go.

" I know I've got the name of being a hard man and a
money-grabber and a driver," said Chase with crabbed bit
terness, "but Avho is it that gives that reputation to me?
People that can't beat me and take advantage of me and
work money out of me by their rascally schemes ! I'm not
a hard man by nature — my actions with you prove that,
don't they?"

" You've been as kind as a body could expect," she an
swered. " It's only right that you should have your money
back, and it ain't been your fault that we couldn't raise it.
But we've done the best we could."

10 The Bondboy

"And that best only led you up to the poorhouse door,"
said he. " I'm offering you a way to escape it, and spend
the rest of your days in the place you're attached to, but I
don't seem to get any thanks for it."

"I am thankful to you for your offer- — from the bottom
of my heart I'm thankful, Mr. Chase," she hastened to
declare.

"Well, neither of us knows how Joe's going to turn out,"
said he. " Under my training he might develop into a good,
sober farmer, one that knows his business and can make it
pay. If he does, I promise you I'll give him a chance
on this place to redeem it. I'll put him on it to farm on
shares when he fills out his time under me, my share of the
crops to apply to the debt. Would that be fair?"

"Nobody in this world couldn't say it wasn't generous and
fair of you, and noble and kind, Mr. Chase," she declared,
her face showing a little color, the courage coming back into
her eyes.

''Then you'd better take up my offer without any mure
foolishness," he advised.

" I'll have to talk it over with Joe," said she.

"He's got nothing to do with it, I tell you," protested
Chase, brushing that phase of it aside with a sweep of his
hairy hand. "You, and you alone, are responsible for him
till he's twenty-one, and it's your duty to keep him ofT the
county and away from the disgrace of pauperism, and your
self as well."

" I ought to sec Joe about it first, Mr. Chase, I ought to
talk it over with him. Let me think a minute."

She settled down to her pensive attitude, elbows on knees,
chin in hands, and looked over the homely scene of riotous
shrubbery, racked buildings, leaning well-curb, rotting
fences. In one swift, painful moment she pictured what that
spot would be after Lsom Chase had taken possession.

Delivered Into Bondage 11

He would uproot the lilacs ; he would level the house and
the chimney, stone by stone ; he would fill up the well and
pull down the old barn that Peter built, and drive his plow
over the hearthstone where she had suckled her babies in the
years of her youth and hope. He would obliterate the land
marks of her bridal days, and sow his grain in the spot where
Peter, fresh in the strong heat of youth, had anchored their
ambitions.

It was not so much for what it had been that her heart
was tender to it, for the years had been heavy there and
toilsome, disappointing and full of pain ; not so much for
what it had been, indeed, as what she and young Peter, with
the thick black hair upon his brow, had planned to make
it. It was for the romance unlived, the hope unrealized,
that it was dear. And then again it was poor and pitiful,
wind-shaken and old, but it was home. The thought of the
desolation that waited it in the dread future struck her
breast like the pangs of bereavement. Tears coursed down
her face ; sobs rose in her aching throat.

.Joe, she thought, would do that much for her and the old
home place ; it would be but a little more than two years of
sacrifice for him, at the most, with the bright hope of inde
pendence and redemption at the end. Being bound out would
not be so disgraceful as going to the poorhouse. Joe would
do it for her, she was sure of that. But it would be better
to wait until evening and ask him.

"Joe, he'll be along home from his work about dusk," said
she, " and we could let you know tomorrow."

" Tomorrow," said Isom Chase, rising stiffly, " I'll have to
send the sheriff here with the papers. Tomorrow, ma'am,
will be too late."

That dreadful picture swept across her inner vision once
more — the chimney down, the house gone. She saw corn
growing over the spot where she sat that moment ; she remem-

1-2 The

bored that Isoin Chase had plowed up a burying-ground once
and sec'ded it to timothy.

''What will I have to do to bind Joe over to you?" she
asked, facing him in sudden resolution.

"We'll git in the buggy," said he, with new friendliness,
seeing that he had won, ''and drive over to Judge Little's.
lie can make out the papers in a few minutes, and I'll pay
you a month's wages in advance. That will fix you up for
groceries and garden seeds and everything, and you'll be as
snug and happy as any woman in the county."

In less than two hours the transaction was completed, and
Sarah \ewbolt was back again in the home upon which she
had secured her slipping tenure at the sacrifice of her son's
liberty. As she began "stirring the pots for supper," as
she called it, she also had time to stir the deep waters of
reflection.

She had secured herself from the threat of the county
farm, and Joe had been the price; Joe, her last-born, the
sole remaining one of the six who had come to her and gone
on again into the mists.

She began to fear in her heart when she stood off and
viewed the result of her desperate panic, the pangs of which
Isom Chase had adroitly magnified. If Joe could work for
Isom Chase and thus keep her from the poorliouse, could lie
not have worked for another, free to come and go as he
liked, and with the same security for her?

Chase said that he had not taken a mortgage on sentiment,
but be bad made capital out of it in the end, trading upon
her affection for the old home and its years-long associations.
As the gloomy evening deepened and she stood in the door
watching for her son's return, she saw through the scheme of
Isom Chase. She never would have been thrown on the
countv with Joe to depend on; the question of his ability to
support both of them admitted of no debate.

Delivered Into Bondage 13

Joe's industry spoke for that, and that was Isom Chase's
reason for wanting him. Isom wanted him because he was
strong and trustworthy, honest and faithful. And she had
bargained him in selfishness and sold him in cowardice, with
out a word from him, as she might have sold a cow to pay
a pressing debt.

The bargain was binding. Judge Little had pressed that
understanding of it upon her. It was as irrevocable as a
deed signed and sealed. Joe could not break it ; she could
not set it aside. Isom Chase was empowered with all the
authority of absolute master.

" If he does anything that deserves thrashing for, I've got
a right to thrash him, do }rou understand that?" Isom had
said as he stood there in the presence of Judge Little, button
ing his coat over the document which transferred Joe's serv
ices to him.

Her heart had contracted at the words, for the cruelty
of Isom Chase was notorious. A bound boy had died in his
service not many years before, kicked by a mule, it was said.
There had been mutterings at that time, and talk of an
investigation, which never came to a head because the bound
lad was nobody, taken out of the county home. But the
fear in the widow's heart that moment was not for her son ;
it was for Isom Chase.

" Lord 'a' mercy, Mr. Chase, you mustn't never strike
Joe ! " she warned. " You don't know what kind of a boy
he is, Mr. Chase. I'm afraid he might up and hurt you
maybe, if you ever done that."

"' I'll handle him in my own way," with portentous signifi
cance ; " but I want }Tou to understand my rights fully at
the start."

"Yes, sir," she answered meekly.

Joe was coming now, pitchfork over his shoulder, from
the field where he had been burning corn-stalks, making ready

14 The Bondboy

for the plow. She hastened to set out a basin of water on
the bench beside the kitchen door, and turned then into the
room to light the lamp and place it on the waiting table.

Joe appeared at the door, drying his hands on the dangling
towel. He was a tall, gaunt-faced boy, big-boned, raw-
jointed, the framework for prodigious strength. His
shoulders all but filled the narrow doorway, his crown came
within an inch of its lintel. His face was glowing from the
scrubbing which he had given it with home-made lye soap,
his drenched hair fell in heavy locks down his deep forehead.

"Well, Mother, what's happened?" he asked, noting her
uneasiness as she sat waiting him at the table, the steaming
coffee-pot at her hand.

" Sit down and start your supper, son, and we'll talk as
we go along," said she.

Joe gave his hair a "lick and a promise" with the comb,
and took his place at the table. Mrs. Xewbolt bent her head
and pronounced the thanksgiving which that humble board
never lacked, and she drew it out to an amazing and uncom
fortable length that evening, as Joe's impatient stomach
could bear clamorous witness.

Sarah Newbolt had a wide fame as a religious woman,
and a woman who could get more hell-fire into her belief and
more melancholy pleasure out of it than any hard-shell
preacher in the land. It was a doleful religion, with little
promise or hope in it, and a great deal of blood and suffering
between the world and its doubtful reward; but Sarah Xew
bolt lived according to its stern inflexibility, and sang its
sorrowful hymns by day, as she moved about the house, in
a voice that carried a mile. But for all the grimncss in her
creed, there was not a being alive with a softer heart. She
would have divided her last square of corn-bread with the
wayfarer at her door, without question of his worth or
unworthiness, his dissension, or his faith.

Delivered Into Bondage 15

" Mr. Chase was here this afternoon, Joe," said she as
the lad began his supper.

"Well, I suppose he's going to put us out?"

Joe paused in the mixing of gravy and corn-bread —
designed to be conveyed to his mouth on the blade of his knife
— and lifted inquiring eyes to his mother's troubled face.

" No, son ; we fixed it up," said she.

"You fixed it up?" he repeated, his eyes beaming with
pleasure. "Is he going to give us another chance?"

" You go on and eat your supper, Joe ; we'll talk it over
when you're through. Lands, you must be tired and hungry
after workin' so hard all afternoon ! "

He was too hungry, perhaps, to be greatly troubled by
her air of uneasiness and distraction. He bent over his
plate, not noting that she sipped her coffee with a spoon,
touching no food. At last he pushed back with a sigh of
repletion, and smiled across at his mother.

"So you fixed it up with him?"

" Yes, I went into a dishonorable deal with Isom Chase,"
said she, "and I don't know what you'll say when you hear
what's to be told to 3Tou, Joe."

"What do you mean by 'dishonorable deal'?" he asked,
his face growing white.

" I don't know what you'll say, Joe, I don't know what
you'll say ! " moaned she, shaking her head sorrowfully.

" Well, Mother, I can't make out what you mean," said
he, baffled and mvstified by her strange behavior.

"Wait — I'll show you>

She rose from the table and reached down a folded paper
from among the soda packages and tins on the shelf. Saying
no more, she handed it to him. Joe took it, wonder in his
face, spread his elbows, and unfolded the document with its
notarial seal.

Joe was ready at printed matter. He read fast and under-

W The llondboi/

standingly, and his face grew paler as his eyes ran on
from line to line. When he came to the end, where his
mother's wavering signature stood above that of Isom Chase,
his head dropped a little lower, his hands lay listlessly, as if
paralyzed, on the paper under his eves. A sudden dejection
seemed to settle over him, blighting his youth and buoyancy.

Mrs. Xewbolt was making out to be busy over the stove.
She lifted the lid of the kettle, and put it down with a
clatter; she opened the stove and rammed the fire with need
less severity with the poker, and it snapped back at her,
shooting sparks against her hand.

"Mother, you've bound me out!" said he, his voice un
steady in its accusing note.

She looked at him, her hands starting out in a little move
ment of appeal. He turned from the table and sat very
straight and stern in his chair, his gaunt face hollowed in
shadows, his wild hair falling across his brow.

" Oh, I sold you ! I sold you ! " she wailed.

She sat again in her place at the table, spiritless and
afraid, her hands limp in her lap.

" You've bound me out ! " Joe repeated harshly, his voice
rasping in his throat.

" I never meant to do it, Joe," she pleaded in weak defense;
" but Isom, he said nothing else would save us from the county
farm. I wanted to wait and ask you, Joe, and I told him I
wanted to ask you. but he said it would be too late!"

"Yes. What else did he sav?" asked Joe, his hands
clenched, his eyes peering straight ahead at the wall.

She related the circumstances of Chase's visit, his threat
of eviction, his declaration that she would become a county
charge the moment that she set foot in the road.

"The old liar!" said Joe.

There seemed to be nothing more for her to say. She
could make no defense of an act which stood before her in

Delivered Into Bondage 17

all its ugly selfishness. Joe sat still, staring at the wall
beyond the stove ; she crouched forward in her chair, as if to
shrink out of his sight.

Between them the little glass lamp stood, a droning, slow-
winged brown beetle blundering against its chimney. Outside,
the distant chant of newly wakened frogs sounded ; through
the open door the warm air of the April night came straying,
bearing the incense of the fields and woodlands, where fires
smoldered like sleepers sending forth their dreams.

His silence was to her the heaviest rebuke that he could
have administered. Her remorse gathered under it, her con
trition broke its bounds.

" Oh, I sold you, my own flesh and blood ! " she cried,
springing to her feet, lifting her long arms above her head.

" You knew what he was, Mother ; you knew what it meant
to be bound out to him for two long years and more. It
wasn't as if you didn't know."

" I knew, I knew ! But I done it, son, I done it ! And
I done it to save my own mis'able self. I ain't got no excuse,
Joe, I ain't got no excuse at all."

" Well, Mother, you'll be safe here, anyhow, and I can
stand it," said Joe, brightening a little, the tense severity of
his face softening. "Never mind; I can stand it, I guess."

" I'll never let you go to him — I didn't mean to do it — it
wasn't fair the way he drove me into it ! " said she.

She laid her hand, almost timidly, on her son's shoulder,
and looked into his face. " I know you could take care of
me and keep off of the county, even if Isom did put us out
like he said he'd do, but I went and done it, anyhow. Isom
led me into it, Joe; he wasn't fair."

" Yes, and you bound me out for about half what I'm
worth to any man and could demand for my services any
where, Mother," said Joe, the bitterness which lie had fought
down but a moment past surging up in him again.

18 The Bomlboy

" Lord forgive me ! " she supplicated piteously. She
turned suddenly to the table and snatched the paper. " It
wasn't fair — he fooled me into it!" she repeated. ''I'll
tear it up, I'll burn it, and we'll leave this place and let
him have it, and he can go on and do whatever he wants to
with it — tear it down, burn it, knock it to pieces — for any
thing I care now ! "

Joe restrained her as she went toward the stove, the
document in her hand.

''Wait, Mother; it's a bargain. We're bound in honor
to it, we can't back down now."

"I'll never let you do it!" she declared, her voice rising
beyond her control. "I'll walk the roads and beg my bread
first ! I'll hoe in the fields, I'll wash folks' clothes for 'em
like a nigger slave, I'll lay down mv life, Joe, before I let
you go into that murdcrin' man's hands!"

lie took the paper from her hands gently.

" I've been thinking it over, Mother," said he, " and it
might be worse — it might be a good deal worse. It gives
me steady work, for one thing, and you can save most of
my wage's, counting on the eggs you'll sell, and the few tur
keys and things. After a while you can get a cow and
make butter, and we'll be better olT, all around. We couldn't
get out of it, anyway, Mother. He's paid you money, and
you've signed your name to the contract along with Isoin.
If we were to pull out and leave here, Isom could send the
sheriff after me and bring me back, I guess. Even if lie
couldn't do that, he could sue vou. Mother, and make no
end of trouble. But we wouldn't leave if we could. It
wouldn't be quite honorable, or like Xewbolts at all, to break
our contract that way."

"But he'll drive you to the grave, Joe!"

A slow smile spread over his face. " I don't think Isom
would find me a good driving horse," said he.

Delivered Into Bondage 19

" He said if you done well," she told him, brightening as
she clutched at that small stay of justification, "he'd let
you work this place on shares till you paid off the loan.
That was one reason "

" Of course," said Joe, a cheerfulness in his voice which
his pale cheeks did not sustain, " that was one thing I had
in mind when I spoke. It'll all come out right. You've
done the wisest thing there was to be done, Mother, and
I'll fulfill your agreement to the last day."

" You're a brave boy, Joe ; you're a credit to the memory
of your pap," said she.

" I'll go over to Isom's early in the morning," said Joe,
quite sprightly, as if the arrangement had indeed solved
all their troubles. He stretched his arms with a prodigious
yawn. " You don't need to bother about getting up and
fixing breakfast for me, for I'll get some over there."

" I hope he'll give you enough," said she.

" Don't you worry over me," he counseled kindly, " for
I'll be all right at Isom's. Sunday I'll come home and see
you. Now, you take a good sleep in the morning and
don't bother."

" I'll be up before you leave," said she, her e}'es over
flowing with tears. " Do you reckon I could lie and sleep
and slumber when my last and only livin' one's goin' away
to become a servant in the house of bondage? And I sold
you to it, Joe, my own flesh and blood ! "

There had been little tenderness between them all their
days, for in such lives of striving, poverty too often starves
affection until it quits the board. But there was a certain
nobility of loyalty which outlived the narrowness of their
lot, and certain traditions of chivalry in the Newbolt
heritage which now guided Joe's hand to his mother's head
as she sat weeping and moaning with her arms flung upon
the disordered table.

20 The Bondbo?/

"It'll bo all right, Mother," he cheered her, "and the
time will soon pass away. What are two years to me?
Not much more than a month or two to an old man like
Isom. I tell YOU, this plan's the finest thing in the world
for vou and me, Mother — don't you grieve over it that
way.'"

She was feeling the comfort of his cheerfulness when he
left her to go to bed, although she was sore in conscience
and spirit, sore in mind and heart.

" The Lord never gave any woman a son like him," said
she as the sound of Joe's steps fell quiet overhead, " and
I've sold him into slavery and bondage, just to save my
own unworthy, coward'y, sncakiii' self ! "

CHAPTER II

A DRY-SALT MAN

JOE was afoot earty. His mother came to the place
in the fence where the gate once stood to give him
a last word of comfort, and to bewail again her selfishness
in sending him away to serve as bondboy under the hard
hand of Isom Chase. Joe cheered her with hopeful pic
tures of the future, when the old home should be redeemed
and the long-dwelling shadow of their debt to Isom cleared
away and paid. From the rise in the road which gave him
the last sight of the house Joe looked back and saw her
with her head bowed to the topmost rail of the fence, a
figure of dejection and woe in the security which she had
purchased for herself at such a heavy price.

Although Joe moved briskly along his way, his feet as
light as if they carried him to some destination of certain
felicity, there was a cloud upon his heart. This arrange
ment which his mother had made in an hour of panic had
disordered his plans and troubled the bright waters of his
dreams. Plans and dreams were all his riches. They were

•/

the sole patrimony of value handed down from Peter New-
bolt, the Kentucky gentleman, who had married below his
state and carried his young mountain wife away to the
Missouri woods to escape the censure of family and criti
cism of friends.

That was the only legacy, indeed, that Joe was conscious
of, but everybody else was aware that old Peter had left
him something even more dangerous than dreams. That was
nothing less than a bridling, high-minded, hot-blooded pride
— a thing laughable, the neighbors said, in one so bitterly
and hopelessly poor.

21

22 Tlic Bondboy

" Tlic pore folks," the neighbors called the Ncwbolts in
speaking of them one to another, for in that community
of fairly prosperous people there was none so poor as they.
The neighbors had magnified their misfortune into a re
proach, and the "pore folks" was a term in which they
found much to compensate their small souls for the slights
which old IYtt.T, in his conscious superiority, unwittingly
put upon them.

To the end of his days Peter never had been wise enough
to forget that nature had endowed him, in many ways, above
the le el of the world to which Fate had chained his feet,
and his neighbors never had been kind enough to forget that
he was poor.

Even after Peter was dead Joe suffered for the family
pride. He was still spoken of, far and near in that com
munity, as the "pore folks's boy." Those who could not
rise to his lofty level despised him because he respected
the gerund, and also said iccrc where they said teas, and
there arc, where usage made it they is. It was old Peter's
big-headedness and pride, they said. What business had the
pore folks's boy with the speech of a school-teacher or
minister in his mouth? His "coming" and his "going,"
indeed! Huh, it made 'em sick.

Joe had lived a lonely, isolated life on account of the
family poverty and pride. He was as sensitive as a poet
to the booiish brutality, and his poor, unlettered, garrulous
mother made it worse for him by her boasting of his parts.
She never failed to let it be known that he had read the
Bible through, "from back to back," and the Cottage
Encyclopedia, and the Imitation of Christ, the three books
in the Xewbolt library.

People had stood by and watched Peter Xewbolt at his
schemes and dreams for many a year, and all the time they
had seen him growing poorer and poorer, and marveled that

A Dry-salt Man 23

he never appeared to realize it himself. Just as a great
many men spend their lives following the delusion that they
can paint or write, and waste their energies and resources
on that false and destructive idea, Peter had held the dream
that he was singled out to revolutionize industry by his
inventions.

He had invented a self-winding clock which, outside his
own shop and in the hands of another, would not wind; a
self-binding reaper that, in his neighbor's field, would not
perform its part ; and a lamp that was designed to manu
facture the gas that it burned from the water in its bowl,
but which dismally and ignobly failed. He had contrived
and patented a machine for milking cows, which might have
done all that was claimed for it if anybody — cows included
— could have been induced to give it a trial, and he had
fiddled around with perpetual motion until the place was
a litter of broken springs and rusty wheels.

Nothing had come of all this pother but rustic enter
tainment, although he demonstrated the truth of his calcula
tions by geometry, and applied Greek names to the things
which he had done and hoped to do. All this had eaten up
his energies, and his fields had gone but half tilled. Perhaps
back of all Peter's futile strivings there had lain the germ
of some useful thing which, if properly directed, might have
grown into the fortune of his dreams. But he had plodded
in small ways, and had died at last, in debt and hopeless,
leaving nothing but a name of reproach which lived after
him, and even hung upon his son that cool April morning
as he went forward to assume the penance that his mother's
act had set for him to bear.

And the future was clouded to Joe Newbolt now, like a
window-pane with frost upon it, where all had been so clear
in his calculations but a day before. In his heart he feared
the ordeal for Isom Chase was a man of evil repute.

24 The liondboi/

Long ago Chase's first wife had died, without issue, cursed
to her grave because she had borne him no sons to labor
in his fields. Lately he had married another, a woman of
twenty, although he was well along the road to sixty-five
himself. His second wife was a stranger in that community,
the daughter of a farmer named Harrison, who dwelt beyond
the county-seat.

Chase's homestead was a place pleasant enough for the
abode of happiness, in spite of its grim history and sordid
reputation. The mark of thrift was about it, orchards
bloomed upon its fair slopes, its hedges graced the high
ways like cool, green walls, not a leaf in excess upon them,
not a protruding bramble. How Isom Chase got all the
work done was a matter of unceasing wonder, for nothing
tumbled to ruin there, nothing went to waste. The secret
of it was, perhaps, that when Chase did hire a man he got
three times as much work out of him as a laborer ordinarily
performed.

There were stories abroad that Chase was as hard and
cruel to his young wife as he had been to his old, but there
was no better warrant for them than his general reputation.
It was the custom in those days for a woman to suffer
greater indignities and cruelties than now without public
complaint. There never had been a separation of man and
wife in that community, there never had been a suit for
divorce. Doubtless there were as many unhappy women to
the square mile there as in other places, but custom ruled
that they must conceal their sorrows in their breasts.

To all of these things concerning Isom Chase, Joe New-
bolt was no stranger. He knew, very well indeed, the life
that lay ahead of him as the bondboy of that old man as
he went forward along the dew-moist road that morning.

Karlv as it was, Isom Chase had been out of bed two
hours or more when Joe arrived. The scents of frying food

A Dry-salt Man 25

came out of the kitchen, and Isom himself was making a
splash in a basin of water — one thing that he could afford
to be liberal with three times a day — on the porch near
the open door.

Joe had walked three miles, the consuming fires of his
growing body were demanding food. The odors of break
fast struck him with keen relish as he waited at the steps
of the porch, unseen by Isom Chase, Avho had lifted his face
from the basin with much snorting, and was now drying it
on a coarse brown towel.

" Oh, you're here," said he, seeing Joe as he turned to
hang up the towel. "Well, come on in and eat your break
fast. We ought to 'a' been in the field nearly an hour
ago."

Hungry as he was, Joe did not advance to accept the
invitation, which was not warmed by hospitality, indeed, but
sounded rather like a command. He stood where he had
stopped, and pushed his flap-brimmed hat back from his
forehead, in nervous movement of decision. Chase turned,
half-way to the door, looking back at his bound boy with
impatience.

" No need for you to be bashful. This is home for a
good while to come," said he.

" I'm not so very bashful," Joe disclaimed, placing the
little roll which contained his one extra shirt on the wash-
bench near the door, taking off his hat, then, and standing
serious and solemn before his new master.

" Well, I don't want to stand here waitin' on you and
dribble away the day, for I've got work to do!" said Isom
sourly.

" Yes, sir," said Joe, yielding the point respectfully, but
standing his ground; "but before I go across your door
step, and sit at your table and break bread with you, I want
you to understand my position in this matter."

26 The Roudboy

"It's all settled between your mother and me," said Chase
impatiently, drawing down his bayoneted eyebrows in a
frown, " there's no understanding to come to between me
and you — you've got nothing to say in the transaction.
You're bound out to me for two years and three months
at ten dollars a month and all found, and that settles it."

" Xo, it don't settle it," said Joe with rising heat ; " it only
begins it. Before I put a bite in mv mouth in this house,
or set my hand to any work on this place, I'm going to lay
down the law to you, Mr. Chase, and you're going to listen
to it, too!"

"Now, Joe, you've got too much sense to try to stir up
a row and rouse hard feelin's between us at the start," said
Isom, coining forward with his soft-soap of flattery and
crafty conciliation.

" If I hadn't 'a' known that you was the smartest boy
of vour age anywhere around here, do you suppose I'd
have taken you in this way?"

'• You scared mother into it ; you didn't give me a chance
to sav anything, and you took an underhanded hold,"
charged Joe, his voice trembling with scarce-controlled anger.
" It wasn't right, Isom, it wasn't fair. You know I could
hire out any day for more than ten dollars a month, and
you know I'd never let mother go on the county as long
as I was able to lift a hand."

"Winter and summer through, Joe — -you must consider
that," argued Isom, giving his head a twist which was meant
to be illustrative of deep wisdom.

*' You knew she was afraid of being thrown on the county,"
said Joe, "you sneaked in when I wasn't around and scared
her up so she'd do most anything."

"Well, you don't need to talk so loud," cautioned Isom,
turning an uneasv, cross look toward the door, from which
the sound of a light step iled.

A Dry-salt Man 27

" I'll talk loud enough for you to hear me, and under
stand what I mean," said Joe. " I could run off and leave
you, Isom, if I wanted to, but that's not my way. Mother
made the bargain, I intend to live up to it, and let her
have what little benefit there is to be got out of it. But
I want you to know what I think of you at the start, and
the way I feel about it. I'm here to work for mother, and
keep that old roof over her head that's dearer to her than
life, but I'm not your slave nor your servant in any sense
of the word."

" It's all the same to mo," said Isom, dropping his sham
front of placation, lifting his finger to accent his words,
"but you'll work, understand that — you'll rc'or/i/"

" Mother told me," said Joe not in. the least disturbed
by this glimpse of Isom in his true guise, "that you had
that notion in your mind, Isom. She said you told her you
could thrash me if you wanted to do it, but I want to tell
you —

•'It's the law," cut in Isom. "I can do it if I sec fit."

"Well, don't ever try it," said Joe. drawing a long breath.
" That was the main thing I wanted to say to you, Isom —
don't ever try that ! "

i; I never intended to take a swingle-tree to you, Joe," said
Isom, forcing his dry face into a grin. " I don't see that
there ever need be any big differences between me and you.
You do what's right by me and I'll do the same by you."

Isom spoke with lowered voice, a turning of the eyes
toward the kitchen door, as if troubled lest this defiance of
his authority might have been heard within, and the seeds
of insubordination sown in another bond-slave's breast.

" I'll carry out mother'? agreement with you to the best
of my ability," said Joe, moving forward as if ready now
to begin.

" Then come on in and cat your breakfast," said Isom.

28 The Bondboy

Isom led the way into the smoky kitchen, inwardly more
gratified than displeased over this display of spirit. Accord
ing to the agreement between them, he had taken under bond
service the Widow Xewbolt's "minor male child," but it
looked to him as if some mistake had been made in the
delivery.

"He's a man!'' exulted Isom in his heart, pleased be
yond measure that he had bargained better than he had
known.

Joe put his lean brown hand into the bosom of his shirt
and brought out a queer, fat little book, leather-bound and
worn of the corners. This he placed on top of his bundle,
then followed Chase into the kitchen where the table was
spread for breakfast.

Mrs. Chase was busy straining milk. She did not turn
her head, nor give the slightest indication of friendliness or
interest in Joe as he took the place pointed out by Chase.
Chase said no word of introduction. lie turned his plate
over with a businesslike flip, took up the platter which
contained two fried eggs and a few pieces of bacon, scraped
off his portion, and handed the rest to Joe.

In addition to the one egg each, and the fragments of
bacon, there were sodden biscuits and a broken-nosed pitcher
holding molasses. A cup of roiled coffee stood ready poured
beside each plate, and that was the breakfast upon which
Joe cast his curious eyes. It seemed absurdly inadequate
to the needs of two strong men, accustomed as Joe was to
four eggs at a meal, with the stays of life which went with
them in proportion.

Mrs. Chase did not sit at the table witli them, nor re
plenish the empty platter, although Joe looked expectantly
and hungrily for her to do so. She was carrying pans of
milk into the cellar, and did not turn her head once in their
direction during the meal.

A Dry-salt Man 29

Joe rose from the table hungry, and in that uneasy state
of body began his first day's labor on Isom Chase's farm.
He hoped that dinner might repair the shortcomings of
breakfast, and went to the table eagerly when that hour
came.

For dinner there was hog-jowl and beans, bitter with
salt, yellow with salt, but apparently greatly to the liking
of Isom, whose natural food seemed to be the very essence
of salt.

" Help yourself, eat plenty," he invited Joe.

Jowls and beans were cheap ; he could afford to be lib
eral with that meal. Generosity in regard to that five-
year-old jowl cost him scarcely a pang.

" Thank you," said Joe politely. " I'm doing very well."

A place was laid for Mrs. Chase, as at breakfast, but
she did not join them at the table. She was scalding milk
crocks and pans, her face was red from the steam. As
she bent over the sink the uprising vapor moved her hair
upon her temples like a wind.

"Ain't you goin' to eat your dinner, Ollie?" inquired
Isom with considerable lightness, perhaps inspired by the
hope that she was not.

" I don't feel hungry right now," she answered, bending
over her steaming pan of crocks.

Isom did not press her on the matter. He filled up his
plate again with beans and jowl, whacking the grinning jaw
bone with his knife to free the clinging shreds of meat.

Accustomed as he had been all his life to salt fare, that
meal was beyond anything in that particular of seasoning
that Joe ever had tasted. The fiery demand of his stomach
for liquid dilution of his saline repast made an early drain
on his coffee ; when he had swallowed the last bean that
he was able to force down, his cup was empty. He cast
his eyes about inquiringly for more.

30 The Bondboy

"We only drink one cup of coffee at a meal here," ex
plained Isoin, a rel)uke in his words for the extravagance
of those whose loose habits carried them beyond that ab
stemious limit.

" All right ; I guess I can make out on that," said Joe.

There was a pitcher of water at his hand, upon which
he drew heavilv, with Hie entire good-will and approbation
of Isoni. Then he took his hat from the floor at his feet
and went out, leaving Isoin hammering again at the jou-j,
this tune with the handle of his fork, in the hope of dis
lodging a bit of gristle which clung to one end.

.Joe's hope leaped ahead to supper, unjustified as the flight
was by the day's developments. Human creatures could not
subsist longer than a meal or two on such fare as that, lie
argued; there must be a change very soon, of course.

It was a heavv afternoon for .Toe. lie was wearv from
the absolute lack of nourishment when the last of the chores
was done long after dusk, and Isoin announced that they
would go to the house for supper.

The supper began with soup, made from the left-over
beans and the hog's jaw of dinner. There it swam, tint
fleshless, long-toot lied, salt-reddened bone, the most hateful
piece of animal anatomv that Joe ever fixed his hungry
eyes upon. And supper ended as it began ; with soup. There
was nothing else behind it, save some hard bread to soak
in it, and its only savor was salt.

Isoin seemed to be satisfied with, even cheered by, his
liquid refreshment. His wife came to her place at the table
when they were almost through, and sat stirring a bowl of
the mixture of bread and thin soup, her eyes set in ab
stracted stare in the middle of the table, far bcvond the
work of her hands. She did not speak to Joe; he did not
undertake anv friendly approaches.

Joe never had seen Mrs. Chase before that day, neigh-

A Dry-salt Man 31

bors though they had been for months. She appeared un
usually handsome to Joe, with her fair skin, and hair colored
like ripe oats straw. She wore a plait of it as big as his
wrist coiled and wound around her head.

For a little while after finishing his unsatisfying meal, Joe
sat watching her small hand turning the spoon in her soup.
He noted the thinness of her young cheeks, in which there
was no marvel, seeing the fare upon which she was forced
to live. She seemed to be unconscious of him and Isom. She
did not raise her eyes.

Joe got up in a little while and left them, going to the
porch to look for his bundle and his book. They were gone.
He came back, standing hesitatingly in the door.

''They're in your room upstairs," said Mrs. Chase with
out turning her head to look at him, still leaning forward
over her bowl.

" I'll show you where it is," Isom offered.

He led the way up the stairs which opened from the
kitchen, carrying a small lamp in his hand.

Joe's room was over the kitchen. It was bleak and bare,
its black rafters hung with spiderwehs, plastered with the
nests of wasps. A dormer window jutted toward the east
like a hollow eye, designed, no doubt, and built by Isom
Chase himself, to catch the first gleam of morning and throw
it in the eyes of the sleeping hired-hand, whose bed stood
under it.

Isom came down directly, took his lantern, and went to
the barn to look after a new-born calf. Where there was
profit, such as he counted it, in gentleness, Isom Chase could
be as tender as a mother. Kind words and caresses, accord
ing to his experience, did not result in any more work out
of a wife so he spared them the young woman at the table,
as he had denied them the old one in her grave.

As Isom hurried out into the soft niijht, with a word

32 The Bondboy

about the calf, Ollie made a bitter comparison between her
lot and that of the animals in the barn. Less than six
months before that gloomy night she had come to that
house a bride, won by the prospect of ease and independence
which Chase had hold out to her in the brief season of his
adroit courtship. The meanest men sometimes turn out to
be the nimblest cock-pheasants during that interesting period,
and, like those vain birds of the jungles, they strut and
dance and cut dazzling capers before the eyes of the ladies
when they want to strike up a matrimonial bargain.

Isom Chase had done that. He had been a surprising
lover for a dry man of his years, spurring around many a
younger man in the contest for Ollie's hand. Together with
parental encouragement and her own vain dreams, she had
not found it hard to say the word that made her his wife.
But the gay feathers had fallen from him very shortly
after their wedding day, revealing the worm which they had
hidden ; the bright colors of his courtship parade had faded
like the fustian decorations of a carnival in the rain.

Isom was a man of bone and dry skin, whose greed and
penury had starved his own soul. He had brought her there
and put burdens upon her, with the assurance that it would
be only for a little while, until somebody could be hired to
take the work off her hands. Then he had advanced the
plea of hard times, when the first excuse had worn out ;
now he had dropped all pretenses. She was serving, as ho
had married her to serve, as he had brought her there in
unrecompensed bondage to serve, and hope was gone from
her horizon, and her tears were undried upon her cheeks.

Isom had profited bv a good day's work from Joe, and
he had not been obliged to drive him to obtain it. So he
was in great spirits when he came back from the barn, where
he had found the calf coming on sturdily and with great prom
ise. He put out the lantern and turned the lamp down a shade

A Dry-salt Man 33

seeing that it was consuming a twentieth more oil than nec
essary to light Ollie about her work. Then he sat down
beside the table, stretching his long legs with a sigh.

Ollie was washing the few dishes which had served for
supper, moving between table and sink with quick com
petence, making a neat figure in the somber room. It was
a time when a natural man would have filled his pipe and
brought out the weekly paper, or sat and gossiped a com
fortable hour with his wife. But Isom never had cheered
his atrophied nerves with a whiff of tobacco, and as for the
county paper, or any paper whatever except mortgages and
deeds, Isom held all of them to be frauds and extravagances
which a man was better off without.

"Well, what do 3rou think of the new hand?" asked Isom,
following her with his eyes.

" I didn't pay any particular notice to him," said she,
her back toward him as she stood scraping a pan at the
sink.

" Did you hear what he said to me this morning when
he was standin' there by the steps?"

"No, I didn't hear," listlessly, indifferently.

"H-m — I thought you was listening."

"I just looked out to see who it was."

" No difference if }rou did hear, Ollie," he allowed gen
erously — for Isom. " A man's wife ought to share his busi
ness secrets, according to my way of lookin' at it ; she's got
a right to know what's going on. Well, I tell you that chap
talked up to me like a man ! "

Isom smacked his lips over the recollection. The promise
of it was sweet to his taste.

Ollie's heart stirred a little. She wondered if someone had
entered that house at last who would be able to set at de
fiance its stern decrees. She hoped that, if so, this breach
in the grim wall might let some sunlight in time into her own

34 The Kondboy

bleak heart. But she said nothing to Isoni, and he talked on.

" I made a good pick when I lit on that boy/' said he,
with that old wise twist of the head; "the best piek in this
county, by a long shot. I choose a man like I pick a horse,
for the blood he shows. A blooded horse will endure where
a plug will fall down, and it's the same way with a man.
Ollie, don't YOU know that, boy's got as good a strain in
him as you'll iind in this part of the country ?"

k* I never saw him before today, I don't know his folks,'*
said -she-, apparently little interested in her husband's find.

Iso:n sat silent for a while, looking at the worn iloor.

" Well, he's bound out to me for two years and more,"
said he, the comfort of it: in his hard, plain face. "I'll have
a steady hand thai: I can depir.d oa now. That's a boy
that'll do his duty; 1:0 until. t in my mind about that. If
may go against the gram once in a while, Olhe, like our
duty does for all of us sometimes; but, no matter how il
tastes to him, that boy Joe, he'll face it.

"He's not one of the kind that'll shirk on me when my
back's turned, or steal from me if he gets a chance, or
betray any trusr I put in him. lie's as poor as blue-John
and as j rend as l.ucifer. but he's as straight as the barrel
of thaL old gun. lie's goi; Kentucky blood in him, and the
best of it. too."

"lie brought a funny little Bible with him," .said Oliie
in low \o:ce. as if communing with herself.

"Funny?" said Isom. "Is that so?"

"So little and fat." she explained. "I never saw one
like it before. It was there on the bench this morning with
his bundle. I put it up by his bed."

"JIum-m," said Isom reflectively, as if considering it
deeply. Then: "Well, I guess it's all right."

Isom sat a good while, fingering his stiff beard. lie gave
no surface indication of the thoughts which were- working

A Dry-salt Man 35

within him, for he was unlike those sentimental, plump, thin-
skinned people who cannot conceal their emotions from the
world. Isom might have been dreaming of gain, or he might
have been contemplating the day of loss and panic, for all
that his face revealed. Sun and shadow alike passed over
it, as rain and blast and summer sun pass over and beat
upon a stone, leaving no mark behind save in that slow and
painful wear which one must live a century to note. He
looked up at his wife at length, his hand still in his beard,
and studied her silently.

"I'm not a hard man, Ollie, like some people give me
the name of being," he complained, with more gentleness
in his voice than she had heard s'nce he was courting her.
He stiil studied her, as if he expected her to uphold com
mon report and protest that lie was hard and cruel-driving
in his way. She said nothing; Isom proceeded to give him
self flic good rating which the world denied.

" I'm not half as mean as some envious people would make
out, if they could find anybody to take stock in what they
say. If I'm not as honey-mouthed as some, that's because
I've got more sense than to diddle-daddle my time away in
words when there's KG much to do. I'll show you that I'm
as kind at heart, (Mile, as any man in this county, if you'll
stand by me and do your part of what's to be done with
out black looks and grumbles .". n(< growls.

"I'm a good many years older than } ou, and maybe I'm
not as light-footed and light-headed as you'd like a hus
band to be, but I've got weight to me where it counts. I
could buy out two-thirds of the young fellers in this county,
Ollie, all' in a bunch."

"Yes, Isom, I guess you could," she allowed, a weary
drag in her voice.

" I'll put a woman in to do the work here in the fall,
when I make a turn of my crops and money comes a little

36 The Bondboy

freer than it does right now," he promised. " Interest on
my loans is behind in a good many cases, and there's no use
crowdin' 'em to pay till they sell their wheat and hogs.
If I had the ready money in hand to pay wages, Ollie, I'd
put a nigger woman in here tomorrow and leave you nothing
to do but oversee. You'll have a fine easy time of it this
fall, Ollic, when I turn my crops."

Ollie drained the dishpan and wrung out the cloths. These
she hung on a line to dry. Isom watched her with ap
proval, pleased to see her so housewifely and neat.

" Ollie, you've come on wonderful since I married you,"
said he. "When you come here — do you recollect? — you
couldn't hardly make a mess of biscuits that was fit to eat,
and you knew next to nothing about milk and butter for
all that you was brought up on a farm."

"Well, I've learned my lesson," said she, with a bitter
ness which passed over Isom's head.

Her back was turned to him, she was reaching to hang
a utensil on the wall, so high above her head that she stood
on tiptoe. Isom was not insensible to the pretty lines of
her back, the curve of her plump hips, the whiteness of her
naked arms. lie smiled.

"Well, it's worth money to you to know all these things,"
said lie, "and I don't know but it's just as well for you
to go on and do the work this summer for the benefit of
what's to be got out of it ; vou'll be all the better able to
oversee a nigger woman when I put one in, and all the
belter qualified to take things into your own hands when
I'm done and in the grave. For I'll have to go, in fifteen
or twenty years more," he sighed.

Ollie made no reply. She was standing with her back
still turned toward him, stripping down her sleeves. Hut
the sigh which she gave breath to sounded loud in Isom's

A Dry-salt Man 37

Perhaps he thought she was contemplating with concern
the day when he must give over his strivings and hoardings,
and leave her widowed and alone. That may have moved
him to his next excess of generosity.

" I'm going to let Joe help you around the house a good
deal, Ollie," said he. " He'll make it a lot easier for you
this summer. He'll carry the swill down to the hogs, and
water 'em, and take care of the calves. That'll save you
a good many steps in the course of the day."

Ollie maintained her ungrateful silence. She had heard
promises before, and she had come to that point of hope
lessness where she no longer seemed to care. Isom was
accustomed to her silences, also ; it appeared to make little
difference to him whether she spoke or held her peace.

He sat there reflectively a little while ; then got up, stretch
ing his arms, yawning with a noise like a dog.

" Guess I'll go to bed," said he.

He looked for a splinter on a stick of stove-wood, which
he lit at the stove and carried to his lamp. At the door
he paused, turned, and looked at Ollie, his hand, hovering
like a grub curved beside the chimney, shading the light
from his eyes.

"So he brought a Bible, did he?"

"Yes."

" Well, he's welcome to it," said Isom. " I don't care
what anybody that works for me reads — just so long as
he works! "

Isom's jubilation over his bondboy set his young wife's
curiosity astir. She had not noted any romantic or noble
parts about the youth in the casual, uninterested view which
she had given him that day. To her then he had appeared
only a sprangling, long-bodied, long-legged, bony-shouldered,
unformed lad whose hollow frame indicated a great capacity
for food. Her only thought in connection with him had

The Bomlboy

been that it meant another mouth to dole Isom's slender
allowance out to, more scheming on her part to make the
rations go round. It meant another one to wash for, another
bed to make1.

She had thought of those things wearily that morning
when she heard the new voice at the kitchen door, and she
had gone there for a moment to look him o\er; for strange
faces, even those of loutish farm-hands, were refreshing in
her isolated life. She had not heard what the lad was saying
to Isom, {'<>;• the kitchen was large and the stove far away
from the door, but she had the passing thought that there
was a good deal of earnestness or passion in the harangue
for a farm-hand to be laying on his early morning talk.

When she found the Hihlc Iving there on top of Joe's
hickory shirt, she h;:d concluded that he had been talking
religion. She hoped that he would not preach at his meals.
The only religion that Ollie knew anything of, and not much
of that, wa> a glum and melancholy kind, with frenzied
shoutings of the preacher in it. and portentous snaking of
the beard in the shudderful pictures of the anguish of unre
pentant death. So she hoped that lie would no! preach
at his meals, for the house was sad enough, and terrible
and gloomily hopeless enough, without the kind of religion
that made the night deeper and the day longer in its dread.

Now Isom's talk about the lad's blood, and h;s expression
of high confidence in his IValtv, gave her a pleasant topic
of speculation. Did good blood make men different from
those who came of mongrel strain, in other points than
that of endurance alone? Did it give men nobility and sym
pathy and loftiness, or was it something prized by those
who hired them, as Isom seemed to value it in Joe, because
it lent strength to the arms?

Ollie sat on the kitchen steps and turned all this over
in her thoughts after Isom had <rone to bed.

A Dry-salt Man 39

Perhaps in the new bondboy, who had come there to serve
vith her, she would find one with whom she might talk and
sometimes ease her heart. She hoped that it might be so,
for she needed chatter and laughter and the common sym
pathies of youth, as a caged bird requires the seed of its
wild life. There was hope in the new farm-hand which swept
into her heart like a refreshing breeze. She would look him
over and sound him when he worked, choring between kitchen
and barn.

Ollie had been a poor man's child. Isom had chosen her
as he would have selected a breeding-cow, because nature,
in addition to giving her a form of singular grace and beauty,
had combined therein the utilitarian indications of ability
to plentifully reproduce her kind. Isom wanted her because
she was alert and quick of foot, and strong to bear the
burdens of motherhood ; for even in the shadow of his decline
he still held to the hope of his youth — that he might leave
a son behind him to guard his acres and bring down his
name.

Ollic was no deeper than her opportunities of life had
made her. She had no qualities of self-development, and
while she had graduated from a high school and still had
the ornate diploma among her simple treasures, learning
had passed through her pretty ears like water through a
funnel. It had swirled and choked there a little while, just
long enough for her to make her "points" required for
passing, then it had sped on and left her unencumbered
and free.

Her mother had always held Ollie's beauty a greater asset
than mental graces, and this early appraisement of it al
its trading value had made Ollic a bit vain and ambitious
to mate above her family. Isom Chase had held out to her
all the allurements of whicli she had dreamed, and she had
married him for his money. She had as well taken a stone

40 The Bondbo?/

to her soft bosom in the hope of warming it into yielding
a flower.

Isom was up at four o'clock next morning. A few minutes
after him Ollic stumbled down the stairs, heavy with the
pain of broken sleep. Joe was snoring above-stairs ; the
sound penetrated to the kitchen down the doorless casement.

" Listen to that feller sawin' gourds ! " said Isom crabbedly.

The gloom of night was still in the kitchen ; in the corner
where the stove stood it was so dark that Ollic had to grope
her way, yawning heavily, feeling that she would willingly
trade the last year of her life for one more hour of sleep
that moist spring morning.

Isom mounted the kitchen stairs and roused Joe, lumber
ing down again straightway and stringing the milk-pails on
his arms without waiting to see the result of his summons.

" Send him on down to the barn when he's ready," directed
Isom, jangling away in the pale light of early day.

Ollie fumbled around in her dark corner for kindling, and
started a fire in the kitchen stove with a great rattling of
lids. Perhaps there was more alarm than necessary in this
primitive and homely task, sounded with the friendly inten
tion of carrying a warning to Joe, who was making no
move to obey his master's call.

Ollie went softly to the staircase and listened. Joe's
snore was rumbling again, as if he traveled a heavy road
in the land of dreams. She did not fcvl that she could go
and shake him out of his sleep and warn him of the penalty
of such remission, but she called softly from where she
stood:

"Joe! You must get up, Joe!"

But. her voice was not loud enough to wake a bird. Joe
slept on, like a heavy-headed boor, and she went back to the
stove to put the kettle on to boil. The issue of his recal-
citration must be left between him and Isom. If he had

A Dry-salt Man 41

good blood in him, perhaps he would fight when Isom lifted
his hand and beat him out of his sleep, she reflected, hoping
simply that it would turn out that way.

Isom came back to the house in frothing wrath a quarter
of an hour later. There was no need to ask about Joe, for
the bound boy's nostrils sounded his own betrayal.

Isom did not look at Ollie as he took the steep stairs four
treads at a step. In a moment she heard the sleeper's bed
squeaking in its rickety old joints as her husband shook
him and cut short his snore in the middle of a long flourish.

" Turn out of here ! " shouted Isom in his most terrible
voice — which was to Ollie's ears indeed a dreadful sound
— " turn out and git into your duds ! "

Ollie heard the old bed give an extra loud groan, as if
the sleeper had drawn himself up in it with suddenness ;
following that came the quick scuffling of bare feet on the
floor.

" Don't you touch me ! Don't you lay hands on me ! "
she heard the bound boy warn, his voice still husky with
sleep.

" I'll skin you alive ! " threatened Isom. " You've come
here to work, not to trifle your days away sleepin'. A good
dose of strap-oil's what you need, and I'm the man to give
it to you, too ! "

Isom's foot was heavy on the floor over her head, mov
ing about as if in search of something to use in the flagella
tion. Ollie stood with hands to her tumultuous bosom, pity
welling in her heart for the lad who was to feel the vigor
of Isom's unsparing arm.

There was a lighter step upon the floor, moving across
the room like a sudden wind. The bound boy's voice sounded
again, clear now and steady, near the top of the stairs
where Isom stood.

"Put that down! Put that down, I tell you!" he com-

42 The lion dbo i/

inandcd. " I warned you never to lift your hand against
me. If you hit MR- \viih that I'll kill YOU in Your
tracks!" '

Olhc's heart leaped at the words; hot blood came into
her face with a surge. She clasped her hands to her bn-a.-t
in new fervor, and lifted her face as one speeding a thankful
prayer. She had heard Isoin Chase I h real ened and defied
in Ins own house1, and the knowledge that one lived with
the courage to do what she had longed to do, lifled her
heart and made it glad.

She heard Isom growl something in his throat, muffled and
low, which she could not separate into words.

"Well, then, I'll let it pass — flu's time," said Joe. "Hut
don't you ever do it any more. I'm a heavy sleeper SOUR
t:mes, and this is an hour or two earlier than I am used
to gel ! ing up; hut if You'll call me loud enough, and talk
like A ou were calling a man and not a dog, you'll have n<>
trouble with me. Now gi-t or. t of here!"

Ollie could have shouted in the triumph of that moment.
She shared the hound hov's victory and exulted in his high
independence. Isom had swallowed it like a coward; now
be was coming down the stairs, snarling in his heard, bir
his knotted fist had not enforced discipline; his coarse,
distorted foot had not been lifted against his new slave
She felt that the dawn was breaking over that house, tha'
one had come into it who would ease her of its terrors.

Joe came along after Isom in a little while, slipping his
suspenders over his lank .shoulders as he went out of (}}••
kitchen floor. lie did not turn to Ollie with the morning's
greetings, but held his face from her and hurried on, she
thought, as if ashamed.

Ollie ran to the door on her nimble toes, the dawn of a
smile on her face, now rosy with its new light, and looked
after him as he hurried away in the brightening day. She

A Dry-salt Man 43

stood with her hands clasped in attitude of pleasure, again
lifting her face as if to speed a prayer.

" Oh, thank God for a man! " said she.

Isom was in a crabbed way at breakfast, sulky and silent.
But his evil humor did not appear to weigh with any shadow
of trouble on Joe, who ate what was set before him like a
hungry horse and looked around for more.

Ollie's interest in Joe was acutely sharpened by the inci
dent of rising. There must be something uncommon, indeed,
in a lad of Joe's years, she thought, to enable him to meet
and pass off such a serious thing in that untroubled way.
As she served the table, there being griddle-cakes of corn-
meal that morning to flank the one egg and fragments of
rusty bacon each, she studied the boy's face carefully. She
noted the high, clear forehead, the large nose, the fineness
of the heavy, black hair which lay shaggy upon his temples.
She studied the long hands, the grave line of his mouth,
and caught a quick glimpse now and then of his large,
serious gray eyes.

Here was an uncommon boy, with the man in him half
showing; Isom was right about that. Let it be blood
or what it might, she liked him. Hope of the cheer that
he surely would bring into that dark house quickened her
cheek to a color which had grown strange to it in those
heavy months.

Joe's efforts in the field must have been highly satisfactory
to Isom that forenoon, for the master of the house came to
the table at dinner-time in quite a lively mood. The morn
ing's unpleasantness seemed to have been forgotten. Ollie
noticed her husband more than once during the meal
measuring Joe's capabilities for future strength with cal
culating, satisfied eyes. She sat at the table with them,
taking minute note of Joe at closer range, studying him
curiously, awed a little by the austerity of his young face,

4

44 TJic Hondbo?/

and tlic melancholy of his eyes, in which there seemed to lie
the concentrated sorrow of many forebears who had suffered
and died with burdens upon their hearts.

" Couldn't you manage to pick us a mess of dandelion
for supper, Ollic?" asked Isom. "I notice it's comin' up
thick in the yard."

"I might, if I could find the time,*' said Ollie.

"Oh, I guess you'll have time enough," said Isom, severely.

Her face grew pale; she lowered her head as if to hide
her fear from Joe.

"Cook it with a jowl," ordered Isom; "they go fine to
gether, and it's good for the blood.*'

Joe was beginning to yearn forward to Sunday, when
he could go home to his mother for a satisfying meal, of
which he was sharply feeling the need. It was a mystery
to him how Isom kept up on that fare, so scant and un
satisfying, but he reasoned that it must be on account of
there being so little of him but gristle and bone.

Joe looked ahead now to the term of his bondage under
Isom; the prospect gave him an uneasy concern. lie was
afraid that the hard fare and harder work would result
in stunting his growth, like a young tree that has come to
a period of drought green and promising, and stands checked
and blighted, never again to regain the hardy qualities which
it needs to raise it up into the beauty of maturity.

The work gave him little concern; he knew that he could
live and put on strength through that if he had the proper
food. So there would have to be a change in the fare, con
cluded Joe, as he sat there while Isom discussed the merits
of dandelion and jowl. It would have to come very early
in his term of servitude, too. The law protected the bond
man in that, no matter how far it disregarded his rights
and human necessities in other ways. So thinking, he pushed
awav from the table and left the room.

A Dry -salt Man 45

Isom drank a glass of water, smacked his dry lips over
its excellencies, the greatest of them in his mind being its
cheapness, and followed it by another.

" Thank the Lord for water, anyhow ! " said he.

"Yes, there's plenty of that," said Ollie meaningly.

Isom was as thick-skinned as he was sapless. Believing
that his penurious code was just, and his frugality the first
virtue of his life, he was not ashamed of his table, and the
outcast scraps upon it. But he looked at his young wife
with a sharp drawing down of his spiked brows as he lingered
there a moment, his cracked brown hands on the edge of
the table, which he had clutched as he pushed his chair
back. He seemed about to speak a rebuke for her extrava
gance of desire. The frown on his face foreshadowed it,
but presently it lifted, and he nodded shrewdly after Joe.

" Give him a couple of eggs mornings after this," said he,
" they've fell off to next to nothing in price, anyhow. And
eat one yourself once in a while, Ollie. I ain't one of these
men that believe a woman don't need the same fare as a
man, once on a while, anyhow."

His generous outburst did not appear to move his wife's
gratitude. She did not thank him by word or sign. Isom
drank another glass of water, rubbed his mustache and
beard back from his lips in quick, grinding twists of his
doubled hand.

" The pie-plant's comin' out fast," said he, " and I sup
pose we might as well eat it — nothing else but humans will
eat it — for there's no sale for it over in town. Seems like
everybody's got a patch of it nowadays."

" Well, it's fillin', as the old woman said when she swal
lowed her thimble, and that boy Joe he's going to be a drain
on me to feed, I can see that now. I'll have to fill him up
on something or other, and I guess pie-plant's about as
good as anything. It's cheap."

46 The Bondboy

" Yes, but it takes sugar," ventured Ollie, rolling some
crumbs between her fingers.

" You can use them molasses in the blue barrel," in
structed Isom.

"It's about gone," said she.

"Well, put some water in the barrel and slosh it around
— it'll come out sweet enough for a mess or two."

Isom got up from the table as he gave these economic
directions, and stood a moment looking down at his wife.

" Don't you worry over fcedin' that feller, Ollie," he ad
vised. "I'll manage that. I aim to keep him stout — I
never saw a stouter feller for his age than Joe — for I'm
goin' to git a pile of work out of him the next two years.
I saw you lookin' him over this morning," said he, approv
ingly, as he might have sanctioned her criticism of a new
horse, " and I could see you was lightin' on his points. Don't
you think he's all I said he was ? "

"Yes," she answered, a look of abstraction in her eyes,
her fingers busy with the crumbs on the cloth, "all you
said of him — and more!"

CHAPTER III

THE SPARK IN THE CLOD

IT DID not cost Isom so many pangs to minister to the
gross appetite of his bound boy as the spring weeks
marched into summer, for gooseberries followed rhubarb,
then came green peas and potatoes from the garden that
Ollie had planted and tilled under her husband's orders.

Along in early summer the wormy codlings which fell
from the apple-trees had to be gathered up and fed to the
hogs by Ollie, and it was such a season of blighted fruit
that the beasts could not eat them all. So there was
apple sauce, sweetened with molasses from the new barrel
that Isom broached.

If it had not been so niggardly unnecessar}', the faculty
that Isom had for turning the waste ends of the farm into
profit would have been admirable. But the suffering attend
ant upon this economy fell only upon the human creatures
around him. Isom's beasts wallowed in plenty and grew
fat in the liberality of his hand. For himself, it looked as
if he had the ability to extract his living from the bare sur
face of a rock.

All of this green truck was filling, as Isom had said, but
far from satisfying to a lad in the process of building on
such generous plans as Joe. Isom knew that too much skim-
milk would make a pot-bellied calf, but he was too stubborn
in his rule of life to admit the cause when he saw that Joe
began to lag at his work, and grow surly and sour.

Isom came in for quick and startling enlightenment in
the middle of a lurid July morning, while he and Joe were
at work with one-horse cultivators, " laying by " the corn.

47

48 The Bondboy

Joe threw his plow down in the furrow, cast the lines from
his shoulders, and declared that he was starving. He
vowed that he would not cultivate another row unless as
sured, then and there, that Isom would make an immediate
enlargement in the bill-of-fare.

Isom stood beside the handles of his own cultivator, there
being the space of ten rows between him and Joe, and took
the lines from around his shoulders, with the deliberate, stern
movement of a man who is preparing for a fight.

"What do you mean by this kind of capers?" he de
manded.

" I mean that you can't go on starving me like you've
been doing, and that's all there is to it ! " said Joe. " The
law don't give you the right to do that."

" Law ! Well, I'll law you," said Isom, coming forward,
his hard body crouched a little, his lean and guttered neck
stretched as if he gathered himself for a run and jump at
the fence. " I'll feed you what comes to my hand to feed
you, you onery whelp ! You're workin' for me, you belong
to me!"

"I'm working for mother — I told you that before," said
Joe. " I don't owe you anything, Isom, and you've got to
feed me better, or I'll walk away and leave you, that's what
I'll do!"

"Yes, I see you walkin' away!" said Isom, plucking at
his already turncd-up sleeve. "I'm goin' to give you u
tannin' right now, and one you'll not forget to your dyin'
day ! "

At that moment Isom doubtless intended to carry out
his threat. Here was a piece of his own property, as much
his property as his own wedded wife, defying him, facing
him with extravagant demands, threatening to stop work
unless more bountifully fed! Truly, it was a state of in
surrection such as no upright citizen like Isom Chase could

The Spark in the Clod 49

allow to go by unreproved and unquieted by castigation of
his hand.

" You'd better stop where you are," advised Joe.

He reached down and righted his plow. Isom could see
the straining of the leaders in his lean wrist as he stood
gripping the handle, and the thought passed through him
that Joe intended to wrench it off and use it as a weapon
against him.

Isom had come but a few steps from his plow. He stopped,
looking down at the furrow as if struggling to hold him
self within bounds. Still looking at the earth, he went back
to his implement.

" I'll put you where the dogs won't bite you if you ever
threaten my life ag'in ! " said he.

" I didn't ihreaten your life, Isom, I didn't say a word,"
said Joe.

"A motion's a threat," said Isom.

" I3ut I'll tell you now," said Joe, quietly, lowering his
voice and leaning forward a little, " you'd better think a
long time before you ever start to lay hands on me again,
Isom. This is twice. The next time "

Joe set his plow in the furrow with a push that sent the
swingletree knocking against the horse's heels. The animal
started out of the doze into which it had fallen while the
quarrel went on. Joe grinned, thinking how even Isom's
dumb creatures took every advantage of him that oppor
tunity offered. But he left his warning unfinished as for
words.

There was no need to say more, for Isom was cowed. He
was quaking down to the tap-root of his salt-hardened soul,
but he tried to put a different face on it as he took up his
plow.

"I don't want to cripple you, and lay you up," he said.
" If I was to begin on you once I don't know where I'd leave

50 The Bondboij

off. Git back to your work, and don't give me any more
of your sass! "

" I'll go back to work when you give me your word that
I'm to have meat and eggs, butter and milk, and plenty of
it," said Joe.

" I orto tie you up to a tree and lash you ! " said Isom,
jerking angrily at his horse. "I don't know what ever made
me pity your mother and keep her out of the poorhouse
by takin' in a loafer like you ! "

"Well, if you're sick of the bargain go and tell mother.
Maybe she is, too," Joe suggested.

"No, you'll not git out of it now, you'll stick right here
and put in your time, after all the trouble and expense I've
been put to teachin' you what little you know about farmin',"
Isom declared.

lie took up his plow and jerked his horse around into the
row. Joe stood watching him, with folded arms, plainly with
no intention of following. Isom looked back over his shoul
der.

"Git to work !" he yelled.

"You didn't promise me what I asked," said Joe, quietly.

" Xo, and that ain't all!" returned Isom.

The tall corn swallowed Isom and his horse as the sea
swallowed Pharaoh and his host. When he returned to the
end of the h'eld where the rebellion had broken out, he found
Joe silting on the beam of his plow and the well-pleased horse
asleep in the sun.

Isom said nothing, but plunged away into the tall corn.
When he came back next time Joe was unhitching his horse.

" Xow, look a-liere, Joe," Isom began, in quite a changed
tone, "don't you fly up and leave an old man in the lurch
that way."

" You know what I said," Joe told him.

"I'll give in to you, Joe; I'll give you everything you ask

The Spark in the Clod 51

for, and more," yielded Isom, seeing that Joe intended to
leave. "I'll put it in writing if you want me to Joe — I'll
do anything to keep }Tou, son. You're the only man I ever
had on this place I wouldn't rather see goin' than comin'."

Isom's word was satisfactory to Joe, and he returned to
work.

That turned out a day to be remembered in the household
of Isom Chase. If he had come into the kitchen at noon with
all the hoarded savings of his years and thrown them down
before her eyes, Ollie could not have been more surprised and
mystified than she was when he appeared from the smoke
house carrying a large ham.

After his crafty way in a tight pinch Isom turned neces
sity into profit by making out that the act wTas free and
voluntary, with the pleasure and comfort of his pretty little
wife underlying and prompting it all. He grinned as if he
would break his beard when he put the ham down on the table
and cut it in two at the middle joint as deftly as a butcher.

" I've been savin' that ham up for you, Ollie. I think
it's just about right now," said he.

" That was nice of you, Isom," said she, moved out of her
settled taciturnity by his little show of thought for her, " I've
been just dying for a piece of ham!"

" Well, fry us a big skillctful of it, and some eggs along
with it, and fetch up a crock of sweet milk, and stir it up
cream and all," directed Isom.

Poor Ollie, overwhelmed by the suddenness and freedom of
this generosity, stood staring at him, her eyes round, her lips
open. Isom could not have studied a more astounding sur
prise. If he had hung diamonds on her neck, rubies on her
wrists, and garnets in her hair, she could quicker have found
hei- tongue.

" It's all right, Ollie, it's all right," said Isom pettishly.
"We're going to have these things from now on. Might as

52 The Rondboy

well eat 'em, and git some of the good of what we produce,
as let them city people fatten off 'em."

Isom went out with that, and Ollie attacked the ham with
the butcher knife in a most savage and barbarous fashion.

Isom's old wife must have shifted in her grave at sight of
the prodigal re-past which Ollie soon spread on the kitchen
table. Granting, of course, that people in their graves are
cogni/ant of such things, which, according to this old stand
ard of comparison in human amazement, thcv must be.

But whether the old wife turned over or lav quiescent in
the place where they put her when they folded her tired old
hands upon her shrunken breast, it is indisputable that the
new one eased the pangs of many a hungry dav in that boun
tiful meal. And Joe's face glowed from the fires of it, and
his eyes sparkled in the satisfaction of his long-abused
stomach.

Next day a more startling thing happened. Twice each
week there passed through the country, from farm to farm,
a butcher's wagon from Shelbyville, the county-seat, a few
miles away. Isom Chase never had been a customer of the
fresh meat purveyor, and the traveling merchant, knowing
from the old man's notoriety that he never could expect him
to become one, did not waste time in stopping at his house.
His surprise was almost apoplectic when Isom stopped him
and bought a soup-bone, and it almost became fatal when
the order was made a standing one. It was such a remarkable
event that the meat man told about it at every stop. It went
round the country like the news of a wedding or a death.

Isom seemed to be satisfied with the new dietary regula
tions, for hams were cheap that summer, anyhow, and the
season was late. Besides that, the more that Joe ate the
harder he worked. It seemed a kind of spontaneous effort
on the lad's part, as if it was necessary to burn up the energy
in surplus of the demand of his growing bone and muscle.

The Spark in the Clod 53

Ollie had picked up and brightened under the influence of
ham and milk also, although it was all a foolish yielding to
appetite, as Isom very well knew. He had beaten that weak
ness in himself to death with the club of abstinence ; for him
self he could live happily on what he had been accustomed
to eating for thirty years and more. But as long as the
investment of ham and milk paid interest in kitchen as well as
field, Isom was grudgingly willing to see them consumed.

Ollie's brightening was only physical. In her heart she
was as gloomily hopeless as before. After his first flash of
fire she had not found much comfort or hope of comradeship
in the boy, Joe Newbolt. He was so respectful in her pres
ence, and so bashful, it seemed, that it almost made her
uncomfortable to have him around.

Man that he was in stature, he appeared no more than a
timid boy in understanding, and her little advances of friend
liness, her little appeals for sympathy, all glanced from the
unconscious armor of his youthful innocence and reserve.
She was forced to put him down after many weeks as merely
stupid, and she sighed when she saw the hope of comradeship
in her hard lot fade out and give way to a feeling bordering
upon contempt.

On Sunday evenings, after he came back from visiting his
mother, Ollie frequently saw Joe reading the little brown
Bible which he had carried with him when he came. She had
taken it up one day while making Joe's bed. It brought back
to her the recollection of her Sunday-school days, when she
was all giggles and frills ; but there was no association of
religious training to respond to its appeal. She wondered
what Joe saw in it as she put it back on the box beside his
bed.

It chanced that she met Joe the next morning after she had
made that short incursion between the brown covers of his
book, as she was returning from the well and he was setting

54 The Bondboy

out for the hog-lot between two pails of sour swill. He stood
out of the path to let her pass without stepping into the
long, dewy grass. She put her bucket down with a gasp of
weariness, and looked up into his eyes with a smile.

The buckets were heavy in Joe's hands ; he stood them down,
meeting her friendly advances with one of his rare smiles,
which came as seldom to his face, thought she, as a humming
bird to the honeysuckle on the kitchen porch.

" Whew, this is going to be a scorcher ! " said she.

"I believe it is,'' he agreed.

From the opposite sides of the path their eyes met. Both
smiled again, and felt better for it.

"My, but you're a mighty religious boy, aren't you?" she
asked suddenly.

"Religious?" said he, looking at her in serious surprise.

She nodded girlishly. The sun, long slanting through the
cherry-trees, fell on her hair, loosely gathered up after her
sleep, one free strand on her check.

" Xo, I'm not religious."

" Well, you read the Bible all the time."

" Oh, well ! " said he, stooping as if to lift his pails.

"Why?" she wanted to know.

Joe straightened his long back without his pails. Beyond
the orchard the hogs were clamoring shrilly for their morning
draught ; from the barn there came the sound of Isom's voice,
speaking harshly to the beasts.

" Well, because I like it, for one thing," said he, " and
because it's the only book I've got here, for another."

" Mv, I think it's a\vful slow!" said she.

"Do you?" he inquired, as if interested in her likes and
dislikes at last.

" I'd think you'd like other books better — detective stories
and that kind," she ventured. "Didn't you ever read any
other book? "

The Spark in the Clod 55

" Some few," he replied, a reflection as of amusement in
his eyes, which she thought made them look old and under
standing and wise. " But I've always read the Bible. It's
one of the books that never seems to get old to you."

"Did you ever read True as Steel?"

" No, I never did."

"Or Tempest and Sunshine? "

He shook his head.

" Oh-h," said she, fairly lifting herself by the long breath
which she drew, like the inhalation of a pleasant recollection,
" you don't know what you've missed ! They are lovely ! "

"Well, maybe I'd like them, too."

He stooped again, and this time came up with his pails.

" I'm glad you're not religious, anyhow," she sighed, as if
heaving a trouble off her heart.

"Are you?" he asked, turning to her wonderingly.

" Yes ; religious people are so glum," she explained. " I
never saw one of them laugh."

" There are some that way," said Joe. " They seem to be
afraid they'll go to hell if they let the Almighty hear them
laugh. Mother used to be that way when she first got her
religion, but she's outgrowing it now."

" The preachers used to scare me to death," she declared.
" If I could hear some comfortable religion I might take up
with it, but it seems to me that everybody's so sad after they
get it. I don't know why."

Joe put down the pails again. Early as the day was, it
was hot, and he was sweating. He pushed his hat back from
his forehead. It was like lifting a shadow from his serious
young face. She smiled.

"A person generally gets the kind of religion that he
hoars preached," said he, " and most of it you hear is kind
of heavy, like bread without rising. I've never seen a laughing
preacher yet."

56 Tlic Hondboy

"There must be sonic, though," she reflected.

" I hope so/' said Joe.

"I'm (jlnd you're not full of that kind of religion," said
she. " For a long time I thought you were."

"You did? Why?"

"Oh, because— " said she.

Her cheek was toward him; he saw that it was red, like the
first tint of a cherry. She snatched up her bucket then and
sped along the path.

Joe walked on a little way, stopped, turned, and looked
after her. He saw the flick of her skirt as her nimble heels
flew up the three steps of the kitchen porch, and he wondered
why she was glad that he was not religious, and why she
had gone away like that, so fast. The pigs were clamoring,
shriller, louder. It was no hour for a youth who had not
yet wetted his feet in manhood's stream to stand looking after
a pair of heels and try to figure out a thing like that.

As Joe had said, he was not religious, according to cate
chisms and creeds. lie could not have qualified in the least
exacting of the many faiths. All the religion that he had was
of his own making, for his mother's was altogether too fero
cious in its punishments and too dun and foggy in its rewards
for him.

He read the Bible, and he believed most of it. There was
as much religion, said he, in the Commandments as a man
needed ; a man could get on with that much very well. Beyond
that he did not trouble.

He read the adventures of David and the lamentations of
Jeremiah, and the lofty exhortations of Isaiah for the sonority
of the phrasing, the poetry and beauty. For he had not
been sated bv manv tales nor blunted by manv books. If he
could manage to live according to the Commandments, he
sometimes told his mother, he would not feel uneasy over a
better wav to die.

The Spark in the Clod 57

But he was not giving this matter much thought as he
emptied the swill-pails to the chortling hogs. He was think
ing about the red in Ollie's cheeks, like the breast of a bright
bird seen through the leaves, and of her quick flight up the
path. It was a new Ollie that he had discovered that morning,
one unknown and unspoken to before that day. But why
had her face grown red that way, he wondered? Why had
she run away?

And Ollie, over her smoking pan on the kitchen stove, was
thinking that something might be established in the way of
comradeship between herself and the bound boy, after all. It
took him a long time to get acquainted, she thought ; but
his friendship might be all the more stable for that. There
was comfort in it ; as she worked she smiled.

There was no question of the need in which Ollie stood of
friendship, sympathy, and kind words. Joe had been in that
house six months, and in that time he had witnessed more pain
than he believed one small woman's heart could bear. While
he was not sure that Isom ever struck his wife, he knew that
he tortured her in endless combinations of cruelty, and pierced
her heart with a thousand studied pangs. Often, when the
house was still and Isom was asleep, he heard her moaning
and sobbing, her head on the kitchen table.

These bursts of anguish were not the sudden gusts of a
pettish woman's passion, but the settled sorrow of one who
suffered without hope. Many a time Joe tiptoed to the
bottom of the staircase in his bare feet and looked at her, the
moonlight dim in the cheerless kitchen, her head a dark blotch
upon the whiteness of her arms, bowed there in her grief.
Often he longed to go to her with words of comfort and let
her know that there was one at least who pitied her hard
fate and sad disillusionment.

In those times of tribulation Joe felt that they could be of
mutual help and comfort if they could bring themselves to

The Bondboy

speak, for lie suffered also the pangs of imprisonment and
the longings for liberty in that cruel house of bondage. Yet
he always turned and went softly, almost breathlessly, back to
his bed, leaving her to sob and cry alone in the struggle of
her hopeless sorrow.

It was a harder matter to keep his hands from the gristly
throat of grim old Isom Chase, slumbering unfeelingly in his
bed while his young wife shredded her heart between the burr-
stones of his cruel mill. Joe had many an hour of struggle
with himself, lying awake, his hot temples streaming sweat,
his eyes staring at the ribs of the roof.

During those months Joe had set and hardened. The
muscles had thickened over his chest and arms; his neck was
losing the long scragginess of youth; his fingers were firm-
jointed in his broadening hands. lie knew that Isom Chase
was no match for him, man to man.

But, for all his big body and great strength, he was only
a boy in his sense of justice, in his hot, primitive desire
to lunge out quickly and set the maladjustments of that
household straight. lie did not know that there was a thing
as old as the desires of men at the bottom of Ollie's sorrow,
nor understand the futility of chastisement in the case of
Isom Chase.

Isom was as far as ever from his hope of a son or heir of
anv description — although he could not conceive the possi
bility of fathering a female child — and his bitter reproaches
fell on Ollie, as they had fallen upon and blasted the woman
who had trudged that somber course before her into the
grateful shelter of the grave. It was a thing which Ollie
could not discuss with young Joe, a thing which only a sym
pathetic mother might have lightened the humiliation of or
eased with tender counsel.

Isom, seeing that the book of his family must close with
him, expelled the small grain of tenderness that his dry heart

The Spark in the Clod 59

had held for his wife at the beginning, and counted her now
nothing but another back to bear his burdens. He mul
tiplied her tasks, and snarled and snapped, and more than
once in those work-crowded autumn days, when she had
lagged in her weariness, he had lifted his hand to strike. The
dav would come when that threatened blow would fall ; of that
Ollie had no consoling doubt. She did not feel that she would
resent it, save in an addition to her accumulated hate, for
hard labor by day and tears by night break the spirit until
the flints of cruelty no longer wake its fire.

Day after day, as he worked by the side of Isom in the
fields, Joe had it foremost in his mind to speak to him of his
unjust treatment of his wife. Yet he hung back out of the
Oriental conception which he held, due to his Scriptural read
ing, of that relationship between woman and man. A man's
wife was his property in a certain, broad sense. It would
seem unwarranted by an}r measure of excess short of murder
for another to interfere between them. Joe held his peace,
therefore, but with internal ferment and unrest.

It was in those days of Joe's disquietude that Ollie first
spoke to him of Isom's oppressions. The opportunity fell
a short time after their early morning meeting in the path.
Isom had gone to town with a load of produce, and Joe and
Ollie had the dinner alone for the first time since he had been
under that roof.

Ollie's eyes were red and swollen from recent weeping, her
face was mottled from her tears. Much trouble had made her
careless of late of her prettincss, and now she was disheveled,
her apron awry around her waist, her hair mussed, her whole
aspect one of slovenly disregard. Her depression was so
grc;it that Joe was moved to comfort her.

" You've got a hard time of it," said he. " If there's
anything I can do to help you I wish you'd let me know."

Ollie slung a dish carelessly upon the table, and followed

(»:) TJic Hondbni/

it with Joe's coliee, which she slopped half out into the
saucer.

"Oh, I feel just like I don't care any more!'' said she, her
lips trembling, tears starting again in her irritated eves. "I
get t rent meiit here that no decent man would give a dog!*'

Joe felt small and young in Olhe's presence, due to the
fact that she was older bv a year at least than himself.

That feeling of littleness had been one of his peculiarities
as long as he could remember when there were others about
older than himself, and supposed from that reason to lie
graver and wiser. It probably had its IK ginning in Jo> 's
starting out rather spindling and undersized, and not grow
ing much until he was ten or thereabout, when he took a
Midden shoot ahead, like a water-sprout on an apple-tree.

And then he always had regarded matrimony as a state of
gravity and maturity, into which the young and unsophisti
cated did not venture. This feeling seemed to place between
them in Joe's mind a boundless gulf, across which he could
oiler her only the sympathy and assistance of a boy. Th< re
was nothing in his mind of sympathy from an equality of
years and understanding, only the chivalric urging of succor
to the oppressed.

"It's a low-down way for a man to treat a woman, es; e-
ciallv his wife," said Joe, his indignation mounting at si;;ht
of her tears.

"Yes. and he'd whip you, too, if he dared to do it," s, id
she, siiiir.;; in Isom's place at the end <;f the table, wh* re
she could look across into Joe's face. "I can see that in h:m
when he watches you cat.*'

"I hope he'll never try it," said Joe.

"You're not afraid of him?"

'*Mavbe not." admitted Joe.

"Then why do you say vou hope he'll never try it?" .-fie
pressed.

The Spark in the Clod

" Oh, because I do," said Joe, bending over his plate.

" I'd think you'd be glad if he did try it, so you could pay
him off for his meanness," she said.

Joe looked across at her seriously.

"Did he slap you this morning?" he asked.

Ollic turned her head, making no reply.

" I thought I heard you two scuffling around in the kitchen
as I came to the porch with the milk," said he.

" Don't tell it around ! " she appealed, her eyes big and
terrified at the recollection of what had passed. " No, he
didn't hit me, Joe; but he choked me. He grabbed me by the
throat and shook me — his old hand's as hard as iron!"

Joe had noticed that she wore a handkerchief pinned
around her neck. As she spoke she put her hand to her
throat, and her tears gushed again.

'* That's no way for a man to treat his wife," said Joe
indignantly.

" If you knew everything — if you knew everything! " said
she.

Joe, being young, and feeling younger, could not see how
she was straining to come to a common footing of under
standing with him, to reach a plane where his sympathy
would be a balm. He could not realize that her orbit of
thought was similar to his own, that she was nearer a mate
for him, indeed, than for hairy-limbed, big- jointed Isom
Chase, with his griz/led hair and beard.

" It was all over a little piece of ribbon I bought yesterday
when I took the eggs up to the store," she explained. " I
got two cents a do/en more than I expected for them, and I
put the extra money into a ribbon — only half a yard. Here
it is," said she, taking it from the cupboard; "I wanted it
to wear on my neck."

She held it against her swathed throat with a little uncon
scious play of coquetry, a sad smile on her lips.

62 The liottdbo?/

" It's nice, and becoming to you, too," said Joe, speaking
after the manner of the countryside etiquette on such things.

" Isoin said I ought to have put the money into a package
of soda, and when I wouldn't fuss with him about it, that
made him madder and madder. And then he — he — did
that!"

" You wouldn't think Isom would mind ten cents," said
Joe.

"He'd mind one cent," said she in hitter disdain. "One
cent- -hu'i! he'd mind one egg! Some people might not.
believe it, but I tell you, Joe, that man counts the eggs every
day, and lie weighs every pound of butter I churn. If I
wanted to, even, I couldn't hide away a pound of butter or a
do/cn of eggs any more than I could hide away that stove.''

"But I don't suppose Isom means to be hard on you or
anybody," said Joe. " It's his wav to be close and stingv,
and he may do better by you one of these days."

" Xo, he'll never do any better," she sighed. " If anything,
he'll do worse — if he can do any worse. I look for him to
strike me next ! "

"He'd better not try that when I'm around!" said Joe
hotly.

"What would you do to him, Joe?" she asked, her yoice
lowered almost to a whisper. She leaned eagerly toward
him as she spoke, a flush on her face.

"Well, I'd stop him, I guess," said Joe deliberately, as if
he had considered his words. As lie spoke he reached dov, n
for his hat, which he always placed on the floor beside h;s
chair when he took his meals.

"If there was a soul in this world that cared for me- — if
I had anywhere to go, I'd leave him this hour!" dec-land
Ollie, her face burning with the hate of her oppressor.

Joe got up from his chair and left the table; she rose wjfh
him and came around the side, lie stopped on his way to

TJie Spark in the Clod 03

the door, looking at her with awkward bashfulness as she
stood there flushed and brilliant in her tossed state, scarcely
a yard between them.

" But there's nobody in the world that cares for me," she
complained sorrowfully.

Joe was lifting his hat to his head. Midway he stayed
his hand, his face blank with surprise.

"Why, you've got your mother, haven't you?" he asked.

" Mother ! " she repeated scornfully. " She'd drive me
back to him ; she was crazy for me to marry him, for she
thinks I'll get all his property and money when he dies."

" Well, he may die before long," consoled Joe.

'"Die!" said she; and again, "Die! He'll never die!"

She leaned toward him suddenly, bringing her face within
a few inches of his. Pier hot breath struck him on the cheek ;
it moved the clustered hair at his temple and played warm in
the doorway of his ear.

" He'll never die," she repeated in low, quick voice, which
fell to a whisper in the end, " unless somebody he's tramped
on and ground down and cursed and driven puts him out of
the way ! "

Joe stood looking at her with big eyes, dead to that fem
inine shock which would have tingled a mature man to the
marrow, insensible to the strong effort she was making to
wake him and draw him to her. He drew back from her, a
little frightened, a good deal ashamed, troubled, and mys
tified.

"Why, you don't suppose anybody would do that?" said
he.

Ollie turned from him, the fire sinking down in her face.

" Oh, no ; I don't suppose so," she said, a little distant and
cold in her manner.

She began gathering up the dishes.

Joe stood there for a little while, looking at her hands as

The

they iiew from plate to plate like white butterflies, as if
some-thing had stirred in him that he did not understand.
Presently he wen! his way to take up his work, no more word-;
passing between them.

Ollie, from under her half raised lids, watched him go, tip
toeing swiftly ;ifter h'm to the1 door as he went down the path
toward the v. ell. Her breath was quick upon h< r lips; her
breast was agitated. If that slow hunk could be warmed
with a man's passions and desires; if sh'1 could wake Inm •
if s!:e into his heart! lie was only a boy, th'

man in its .strong face behind that mask o:'

wild, long hair. If lay there wailing to moye him in wav
ye! strange !o I:'-'- experience. If she might .send her whi>;<.
to that s!i!i slumbering force and charge it into life a da,
before its time!

She stood v 1 upon the door, trailing him wiih !

is hr pa-sed on io tin- barn. She felt that she had all
but reached beyond the insulation of his adolescence in lha:
burning moment wlicn her breath was on his cheek ; she knev.
that the wood, even fli.i! hour, was warm tinder the fire.
What ni:'j,'li! a whisper now, a smile [hen, a kindness, a word.
a hand ;a:d s'.fllv upon h;s hai/. work in the davs to come:
turiK-d back to h.ei- work, her mind stirred out of it.-
sluggish rut, (lie swirl of her new thoughts quickening in her
blood. Isom Chase would not d:<. ; he would live on and on.
harder, drier, stingier vea.r by year, unless a bolt from
heaven withered him or the hand of man hud him low. What
might come to him. he deserved, even the anguish of deal!)
with a str cord about h's neck; even ihe strong blow

of an ax as he slept on his bed. snatching from him the
life that he had debased of all its beaut v, without the sav
ing chance of repentance in the end.

She had thought of doing it with her own hand; a hun
dred ways she had planned and contrived it in her nnnd.

The Spark in the Clod 65

goaded on nearer and nearer to it by his inhuman oppres
sions day by day. But her heart had recoiled from it as a
task for the hand of a man. If a man could be raised up
to it, a man who had suffered servitude with her, a man who
would strike for the double vengeance, and the love of her
in his heart!

She went to the door again, gripping the stove-lid lifter in
her little hand, as the jangle of harness came to her when Joe
passed with the team. lie rode by toward the field, the sun
on his broad back, slouching forward as his heavy horses
plodded onward. The man in him was asleep yet, yes ; but
there was a pit of fire as deep as a volcano's throat in his
slumbering soul.

If she could lift him up to it, if she could pluck the heart
out of him and warm it in her own hot breast, then there
would stand the man for her need. For Isom Chase would
not die. He would live on and on, like a worm in wood, until
some strong hand fed him to the flames.

CHAPTER IV

A STRANGER AT THE GATE

RAIX overtook Isom as he was driving home from town
that evening, and rain was becoming one of the few
things in this world from which he would flee-. It aggravated
the rheumatism in his knotted toes and stabbed his knee-
joints with awl-piercing pains.

For upward of forty-live years Isom had been taking the
rains as they came wherever they might find him. It made
him growl to turn tail to them now, and trot to shelter from
evcrv shower like a hen.

So lie was in no sweet humor as lie drew near his own barn
yard gate with the early autumn downpour already finding
its way through his coat. It came to him as he approached
that portal of his domain that if he had a son the boy would
be there, with the gate flung wide, to help him. It was only
one of the thousand useful offices which a proper boy could
fill around that place, thought he; but his wives had con
spired in barrenness against him; no son ever would come
to cheer his declining days.

Kven if he had the kind of a wife that a man should have,
reflected he, she would be watching; she would come through
rain and hail, thunder and wild blast, to open the gate and
ease him through without that troublesome stop.

Matrimony had been a profitless investment for him, said
he in bitterness. His first wife had lived long and eaten
ravenously, and had worn out shoes and calico slips, and his
second, a poor unwilling hand, was not worth her keep.

So, with all this sour summing up of his wasted ventures in
his mind, and the cold rain spitting through his years-worn

66

67

coat, Isom was in no humor to debate the way with another
man when it came to entering into his own property through
his own wide gate.

But there was another man in the road, blocking it with his
top-buggy, one foot out on the step, his head thrust around
the side of the hood with inquiring look, as if he also felt
that there should be somebody at hand to open the gate and
let him pass without muddying his feet.

" Ho ! " called Isom uncivilly, hailing the stranger as he
pulled up his team, the end of his wagon-tongue threatening
the hood of the buggy ; " what do you want here? "

The stranger put his head out a bit farther and twisted
his neck to look behind. He did not appear to know Isom,
any more than Isom knew him, but there was the surliness
of authority, the inhospitality of ownership, in Isom's mien,
and it was the business of the man in the buggy to know
men at a glance. He saw that Isom was the landlord, and
he gave him a nod and smile.

" I'd like to get shelter for my horse and buggy for the
night, and lodging for myself," said he.

'* Well, if you pay for it I reckon you can git it," returned
Isom. " Pile out there and open that gate."

That was the way that Curtis Morgan, advance agent cf
the divine light of literature, scout of knowledge, torch-bearer
of enlightenment into the dark places of ignorance, made his
way into the house of Isom Chase, and found himself in due
time at supper in the low-ceiled kitchen, with pretty Ollie,
like a bright bead in a rusty purse, bringing hot biscuits
from the oven and looking him over with a smile.

Curtis Morgan was a slim and limber man, with a small
head and a big mouth, a most flexible and plastic organ.
Morgan wore a mustache which was cut back to stubs, giving
his face a grubby look about the nose. His light hair was
short and thick, curling in little love-locks about his ears.

C>8 TJic Itonrfbo?/

Morgan sold books. lie would put you in a set of twenty-
seven volume's of the History of lite World for fifty-three
dollars, or he would open his valise and sell you a rcady-
reckoner for six hits. He carried Household Compcndiums of
f'xi'ftd Knowledge and Medical Adr'ixcra; lie had poultry
guides and horse hooks, and books on bees, and if he couldn't
sell you one thing he would sell you another, unless you were
a worm, or a greased pig, and able, by some extraordinary
natural or artificial attribute, to slip out of his hands.

As- h:i-; been the case with many a greater man before him,
Morgan's most profitable business was done in his smallest
arliL'le of trade. In the country where men's lives were
counted too short for all the work they had to do, they didn't,
have any time for histories of the world and no intvrest
in them, anvhow. The world was to them no more than they
ciiiild see of it, and the needs of their lives and their longings
— save in some adventurer who developed among them now
and thru — went no farther than the limit of their vision.

The ready-reckoner was, therefore, the money-maker for
Morgan, who seemed !o carry an inexhaustible supply. It
told a farm-hand what his pay amounted to by days and
hours down to the fraction of a cent ; it told the farmer what
interest on his note would be; it showed how to find out
how manv bushels of corn there were in a crib without measur
ing the contents, and how many Ions of hay a stack contained ;
it told how to draw up a will and write a deed, and make
liniment for the mumps.

Isom drew all this information out of his guest at supper,
and it did not require much r'i'ort to set the sap flowing.

Morgan talked to Isom and looked at Olhe; he asked Joe
a question, and cocked his eye on Ollie's face as if he expected
to iind the answer there; he pronounced shallow platitudes
of philosophy aiming them at Isom, but looking at Ollie for
approval or dissent.

69

Isom appeared to take rather kindly to him, if his unusual
volubility indicated the state of his feelings. Pie asked Mor
gan a great deal about his business, and how he liked it, and
whether lie made any money at it. Morgan leaned back on
the hinder legs of his chair, having finished his supper, and
fumbled in his waistcoat pocket for his goose-quill pick. He
winked at Isom on the footing of one shrewd man to another
as he applied the quill to his big white teeth.

" Well, I pay my way," said he.

There was a great deal back of the simple words ; there
was an oily self-satisfaction, and there was a vast amount of
portentous reserve. Isom liked it ; he nodded, a smile moving
his beard. It did him good to meet a man who could get
behind the sham skin of the world, and take it by the heels,
and turn it a stunning fall.

Next morning, the sun being out again and the roads
promising to dry speedily, Morgan hitched up and prepared
to set out on his flaming path of enlightenment. Before going
he made a proposal to Isom to use that place as headquarters
for a week or two, while he covered the country lying about.

Anything that meant profit to Isom looked good and fitting
in his eyes. The feeding of -another mouth would entail little
expense, and so the bargain was struck. Morgan was to have
his breakfast and supper each day, and provender for
his horse, at the rate of four dollars a week, payable in
advance.

Morgan ran over his compendiums and horse books, but
Isom was firm for cash; he suggested at least one rcady-
rcckoncr on account, but Isom had no need of that. Isom
could guess to a hundredweight the contents of a stack
of hay, and there never was a banker in this world that
could outfigure him on interest. He had no more need for a
ready-reckoner than a centipede has of legs. Morgan, seeing
that nothing but money would talk there, produced the week's

70 The Rondbo?/

charge on the spot, and drove off to his day's canvassing
well satisfied.

Morgan had not been a paying guest in that house two
days before the somber domestic tragedy that it roofed was
as plain to him as if he had it printed and hound, and in his
valise along with the compendiums of his valuable assortment.

lie found it pleasant to return to the farm early of an
afternoon and sit in the kitchen door with his pipe, and watch
Ollie's face clear of clouds as he talked. Consolation and
cheer were strangers to her heart; it required no words from
her to tell Morgan that.

Her blushing gratitude for small offices of assistance, such
as fetching a pail of water or a basket of garden greens,
repaid Morgan all that he missed in sales by cutting short
his business day just for the pleasure of returning and talk
ing with her.

Isoin was too self-centered, and unconscious of his wife's
uncommon prettiness, to be jealous or suspicious of Morgan's
late goings or early returns. If a man wanted to pay him
four dollars a week for the pleasure of carrying up water,
cutting stove-wood or feeding the calves, the fool was welcome
to do it as long as his money held.

So it was that old Isoin, blind and deaf and money-mad,
set with his own hand and kindled with his own breath, the
insidious spark which trustful fools before his day have seen
leap into flame and strip them of honor before the eyes of
men.

Morgan made a long stay of it in that section, owing to the
density of the population, he claimed, and the proximity of
several villages which he could reach in a few miles' drive.
He was in his third week when Isom was summoned on jury
service to the county seat.

Twelve dollars had passed from the book agent's hands
into Isom's, and Isom grinned over it as the easiest money

A Stranger a1 the Gate 71

that it ever had been his pleasure to collect. He put it away
with his savings, which never had earned interest for a banker,
and turned the care of the farm over to Joe.

Jury service at the county seat was an uncertain thing.
It might last a day, and then it might tie a man up for two
or three weeks, but Isom was able to leave home with a more
comfortable feeling than ever before. He had a trustworthy
servant to leave behind him, one in whose hands everything
would be safe, under whose energy and conscientious effort
nothing would drag or fall behind.

Isom felt that he could very well afford to spread on a
little soft-soap, as flattery was provinciallv called, and invest
Joe with a greater sense of his responsibility, if possible.
When occasion required, Isom could rise to flattery as deftly
as the best of them. It was an art at which his tongue was
wonderfully facile, considering the fact that he mingled so
seldom with men in the outside doings of life. His wits had
no foil to whet against and grow sharp, save the hard sub
stance of his own inflexible nature, for he was born with
that shrewd faculty for taking men " on the blind side," as
they used to call that trick in Missouri.

" I'm turnin' the whole farm over to you to look after like
it was your own while I'm away," said he, "and I'm doing it
with the feeling that it's in worthy hands. I know you're
not the boy to shirk on me when my back's turned, for you
never tried to do it to my face. You stand by me, Joe, and
I'll stand by you ; you'll never lose anything by it in the end.

" I may be a crabbed old feller once in a while, and snarl
around some, but my bark's worse than my bite, you know
th.at by this time. So I'll put everything in your hands, with
a feeling that it'll be looked after just the same as if I was
here."

" I'll do the best I can by you," promised Joe, his generous
heart warming to Isom a little in spite of past indignities,

The

and tlie fact that Joe knew very well the old man's talk was
art ful pretense.

"I know you will,'' said Isoin, patting liis shoulder in
fatherly approbation. "In case I'm held over there a week,
you keep your eye on that agent, arid don't let him stay here
a day overtime without another week's board in advance/'

*" I'll at lend to him." promised Joe.

Isom's hand had lingered a minute on Joe's shoulder while
lie talked, and the old man's satisfaction over the depth of
muscle that he felt beneath it was great, lie stood looking
Joe over with quick-shifting, calculating eye*, measuring him
in every part, from Hank to hock, like a farrier. lie was
gratified to see how Joe had filled out in the past six months.
If lu- had paid for a colt and been delivered a draft-horse, his
surprise would not have1 been more pleasant.

As it was, he had bargained for thf services of a big-
jomted, long-boned lad, and found himself possessed of a man.
The fine part of it was that he had nearly two years more of
service at ten dollars a month coming from Joe, who was
worth twenty of any man's money, and could command it.
just as he stood. That was business, that was bargaining.

Isom's starved soul distended over it ; the feeling was warm
in his veins, like a gill of home-made brandy. Tie had him.
bound bodv and limb, tied in a corner from v,hich he could
not escape, to send and call, to fet ch and carr v, lor the bet tei
part of two good, profitable years.

As Isom rode awav he rubbed his drv, hard hands above
his saddle-horn, feeling more comfortable than h" had 1'eli
for many a dav. lie gloated over the excellent bargain Ilia'
he had made1 with the Widow Xewbolt ; he grinned at the roots
of his old rusty beard. If e-ver a man poke el him.-i-lf in \\\<
ribs in the cxevss of self-felicitatiem. Isom Chase ehd it as hi
rode along e>n his e>!d buckskin horse that autumn morning.
with the sun jus! lifting over the' hill.

A Stranger at the Gate 73

It was an excellent thing, indeed, for a patriot to serve
his country once in a while on a jury, thought Isom, es
pecially when that patriot had been shrewd in his dealings
with the widow and orphan, and had thus secured himself
against loss at home while his country called him abroad.
Jury duty was nothing but a pleasant season of relaxation in
such case.

There would be mileage and per diem, and the state would
bear the expense of lodging and meals in the event of his
being drawn out of the panel to serve in some long criminal
case. Mileage and per diem would come in very nicely, in
addition to the four dollars a week that loose-handed book
agent was paying. For the first time in his life when called
upon for jury service, Isoni went to meet it with no sourness
in his face. Mileage and per diem, but best of all, a great
strong man left at home in his place; one to be trusted in
and depended upon ; one who would do both his master's work
and his own.

Joe had no such pleasant cogitations to occupy his mind
as he bent his long back to assume the double burden when
Isom went away. For many days he had been unquiet with
a strange, indefinable unrest, like the yearn of a wild-fowl
when the season comes for it to wing away to southern seas.
Curtis Morgan was behind that strong, wild feeling; he was
the urge of it, and the fuel of its fire.

Why it was so, Joe did not know, although he struggled
in his reason to make it clear. For man}7 days, almost from
the first, Joe had felt that Morgan should not be in that
house ; that his pretext of lingering there on business was
a blind too thin to deceive anybody but Isom. Anybody could
deceive Isom if he would work his scheme behind a dollar.
It was a shield beyond which Isom could not see, and had
no wish to inquire.

Joe did not like those late starts which Morgan made of

74 The Romlbo?/

a morning, long after lie and Isoin were in the field, nor the
early homings, long before they came in to do the chores.
Joe left the house each morning with reluctance, after Isonfs
departure, lingering over little things, finding hitherto undis
covered tasks to keep him about in the presence of Ollic, and
to throw him between her and the talkative boarder, who
seemed alwavs hanging at her heels. Since their talk at
dinner on the day that Morgan came, Joe had felt a new and
deep interest in Ollie, and held for her an unaccountable feel
ing of friendliness.

This feeling had been fed, for a few days, by Ollic, who
found odd minutes to talk with him as she had not talked
before, and bv small attentions and kindnesses. She had
greeted him in the morning with smiles, where her face once
wore the sad mask of misery; and she had touched his hand
sometimes, with encouraging or commending caress.

Joe had yielded to her immediately the unreserved loyalty
of his unsophisticated soul. The lot of his bondage was
lightened by this new tie, the prospect of the unserved term
under Isom was not so forbidding now. And now this fellow
Morgan had stepped between them, in some manner bevond
his power to define. It was as one who beholds a shadow fall
across his threshold, which he can neither pick up nor cast
away.

Ollie had no more little attentions for Joe, but endless
solicitude for Morgan's comfort ; no more full smiles for him,
but onlv the reflections of those which beamed for the chatter
ing lounger who made a pretense of selling books while lie
made love to another man's wife.

It was this dim groping after the truth, and his half-
conception of it, that rendered Joe miserable. lie did not
fully understand what Morgan was about, but it was plain to
him that the man had no honest purpose there. lie could
not repeat his fears to Isom, for Isom's wrath and correction

A Stranger at the Gate 75

would fall on Ollie. Now he was left in charge of his master's
house, his lands, his livestock, and his honor.

The vicarious responsibility rested on him with serious
weight. Knowing what he knew, and seeing what he saw,
should he allow things to proceed as they had been going?
Would he be true to the trust that Isom had placed in him
with his parting word in standing aside and knowingly per
mitting this man to slip in and poison the heart of Isom's
wife?

She was lonely and oppressed, and hungry for kind words,
but it was not this stranger's office to make green the barren
ness of her life. He was there, the bondboy, responsible to his
master for his acts. She might come to him for sympathy,
and go away with honor. But with this other, this man whose
pale eyes shifted and darted like a botfly around a horse's
ear, could she drink his counsel and remain undeh'led ?

Joe thought it up and down as he worked in the field near
the house that morning, and his face grew hot and his eyes
grew fevered, and his resentment against Morgan rose in his
throat.

lie watched to see the man drive away on his canvassing
round, but the sun passed nine o'clock and he did not go.
He had no right there, alone in the house with that woman,
putting, who could say, what evil into her heart.

Ten o'clock and the agent's buggy had not left the barn.
Joe could contain himself no longer. He was at work in a
little stony piece of late clover, so rough he did not like to
risk the mower in it. For three hours he had been laying
the tumbled swaths in winding tracks across the field, and
he had a verv good excuse for going to the well, indeed.
Coupled with that was the need of a whet-rock, and behind
it all the justification of his position. He was there in his
master's place ; he must watch and guard the honor of his
house.

70 The

Joe could not set out on that little trip without a good
deal of moral cudgeling when it came to the point, although
he threw dov.n his scythe with a muttered curse on his lips
for the man \\l;o was playing such an underhanded game.

It was on Ollie's account he hesitated. OIlie would think
that he suspected her, when tin-re was nothing farther from
his m:nd. It was Morgan who would set the snare for her
to trip into, and it was Morgan that he was going to send
about his business. But OIlie might take offense and turn
against him, and make it as unpleasant as she had shown
that she could make it agreeable.

Hut duty wa.s stronger than friendship. It was stern and
implacable, and there was no pleasant road to take around
it and come out with honor at the other end.

Joe made as much noise as he could with his big feet — and
that was no inconsiderable' amount — as he approached the
house. But near the building the grass was long, and soft
underfoot, and it bore Joe around to the kitchen window
silently. His lips were too dry to whistle ; his heart was
going too fast to carry a tune.

lie paused a little way beyond the window, which stood
open with the sun falling through it, listening for the sound
of their voices. It was strangely silent for a time when the
book-agent was around.

Joe went on, his shadow breaking the sunbeam which
whitened the kitchen floor. There was a little quick start.
as he came suddenly to the kitchen door; a hurried stir of
feet. As he stepped upon the porch he saw Morgan in the
door, OIlie not a yard behind him, their hands just breaking
their clasp. Joe knew in his heart that Morgan had bei u
holding her in his arms.

Ollie's face was Hushed, her hair was disturbed. Her
bosom rose and fell like troubled water, her eyes were brighter
than Joe ever had seen them. Even Morgan was different,

A Stranger at the Gate 77

sophisticated and brazen that he was. A flash of red showed
on his cheekbones and under his eyes ; his thin nostrils were
panting like gills.

Joe stood there, one foot on the porch, the other on the
ground, as blunt as honesty, as severe as honor. There was
nothing in his face that either of them could read to indicate
what was surging in his breast. He had caught them, and
they wondered if he had sense enough to know.

Joe pushed his hat back from his sweating forehead and
looked inquiringly at Morgan.

" Your horse sick, or something ? " he asked.

" No," said Morgan, turning his back on Joe with a little
jerk of contempt in his shoulders.

" Well, I think he must be down, or something," said Joe,
" for I heard a racket in the barn."

" Why didn't you go and see what was the matter ?"
demanded Morgan crossly, snatching his hat from the table.

Ollie was drowned in a confusion of blushes. She stood
hanging her head, but Joe saw the quick turn of her eyes
to follow Morgan as he went away in long strides toward
the barn.

Joe went to the tool-chest which stood in a corner of the
kitchen and busied himself clattering over its contents. Pres
ently he looked at Ollie, his hand on the open lid of the box.

" Did you see that long whetstone lying around anywhere,
Ollie ?" he asked.

She lifted her head with a little start. Joe never had
called her familiarly by her name before. It always had
been " Missis Chase," distant and respectful.

" No, I haven't seen it, Joe," she answered, the color
leaving her cheeks.

" All right, Ollie," said he, holding her eyes with steady
gaze, until she shifted hers under the pain of it, and the
questioning reproach.

78 The liondboij

Joe slammed down the lid of the tool-chest, as if with the
intention of making as much noise as possible.

There was something in the way he had spoken her name
that was stranger than the circumstance itself. Perhaps she
felt the authority and the protection which Joe meant that
his voice should assume ; perhaps she understood that it
was the word of a man. She was afraid of him at that
moment, as she never had been afraid of Isom in all their
married life.

''I suppose Isom put it away somewhere around the barn,"
said Joe.

"Maybe he did, Joe."

"I'll go down there and see if I can find it," he said.

Ollie knew, as well as Joe himself, that he was making the
whetstone the vehicle to carry his excuse for watching Mor
gan away from the farm, but she was not certain whether
this sudden shrewdness was the deep understanding of a man,
or the domineering spirit of a crude lad, jealous of his passing
authority.

The uncertainty troubled her. She watched him from the
door and saw him approach Morgan, where he was backing
his horse into the shafts.
''All right, is he ?" asked Joe, stopping a moment.

Morgan was distant.

" I guess he'll live another day, don't worry about him,"
said lie, in surly voice.

"What time do you aim to be back today?" pursued
Joe. entiivlv unmoved bv Morgan's show of temper.

"Say, I'll set up a bulletin board with my time-table on
it if you've got to have it, Mr. Overseer! ' said Morgan,
looking up from the buckling of a shaft-strap, his face
coloring in anger.

"Well, you don't need to get huffy over it."

" Mind vour business then,*' Morgan growled.

A Stranger at the Gate 79

He didn't wait to discuss the matter farther, but got into
the buggy without favoring Joe with as much as another
glance, gave his horse a vindictive lash with the whip and
drove off, leaving the gate open behind him.

Joe shut it, and turned back to his mowing.

Many a time he paused that morning in his labor, leaning
on the snath of his scythe, in a manner of abstraction and
seeming indolence altogether strange to him. There was a
scene, framed by the brown casing of the kitchen door, with
two figures in it, two clinging hands, which persisted in its
disturbing recurrence in his troubled mind.

Ollie was on dangerous ground. How far she had advanced,
he did not know, but not yet, he believed, to the place where
the foulness of Morgan had defiled her beyond cleansing. It
was his duty as the guardian of his master's house to watch
her, even to warn her, and to stop her before she went too far.

Once he put down his scythe and started to go to the
house, his mind full of what he felt it his duty to say.

Then there rose up that feeling of disparity between ma
tron and youth which had held him at a distance from Ollie
before. He turned back to his work with a blush upon his
sun-scorched face, and felt ashamed. But it was not a thing
to be deferred until after the damage had been done. He
must speak to her that day, perhaps when he should go in
for dinner. So he said.

Ollie seemed self-contained and uncommunicative at dinner.
Joe thought she was a little out of humor, or that she was
falling back into her old gloomy way, from which she had
emerged, all smiles and dimples, like a new and youthful
creature, on the coming of Morgan. He thought, too, that
this might be her way of showing her resentment of the
familiarity that he had taken in calling her by her name.

The feeling of deputy-mastership was no longer important
upon his shoulders. He shrank down in his chair with a

80 The Itondboy

sense of drawing in, like a snail, while he burned with humili
ation and shame. The pinnacle of manhood was too slippery
for his clumsy feet ; he had plumped down from its altitudes
as swiftly as he had mounted that morning under the spur
of duty. He was a boy, and felt that he was a boy, and far,
far from being anything nobler, or stronger, or better quali
fied to give saving counsel to a woman older, if not wiser,
than himself.

Perhaps it was Ollie's purpose to inspire such feeling, and
to hold .Joe in his place. She was neither so dull, nor so
unpractised in the arts of coquetry, to make such a suppo
sition improbable.

It was only when Joe sighted Morgan driving back to
the farm late in the afternoon that his feeling of authority
asserted itself again, and lifted him up to the task before
him. He must let her understand that he knew of what was
going on between them. A few words would suffice, and they
must be spoken before Morgan entered the house again to
pour his poison into her ears.

Ollie was churning that afternoon, standing at her task
close by the open door. Joe came past the window, as he
had crossed it that morning, his purpose hot upon him, his
long legs measuring the ground in immense, swift steps. He
carried his hat in his hand, for the day was one of those
with the pepper of autumn in it which puts the red in the
apple's cheeks.

Ollie heard him approaching ; her bare arm stayed the
stroke of the churn-dasher as she looked up. Her face was
bright, a smile was in her eyes, revealing the clear depths of
them, and the life and the desires that issued out of them,
like the waters of a spring in the sun. She was moist and
radiant in the sweat of her labor, and clean and fresh and
sweet to sec.

Her dress was parted back from her bosom to bare it to

A Stranger at the Gate 81

the refreshment of the breeze, and her skin was as white as
the cream on the dasher, and the crimson of her cheeks
blended down upon her neck, as if the moisture of her brow
had diffused its richness, and spread its beauty there.

She looked at Joe, halted suddenly like a post set upright
in the ground, stunned by the revelation of the plastic beauty
of neck and bare bosom, and, as their eyes met, she smiled,
lifted one white arm and pushed back a straying lock of hair.

Joe's tongue lay cold, and numb as wood against his
palate ; no word would come to it ; it would not move. The
wonder of a new beauty in God's created things was deep
upon him ; a warm fountain rose in him and played and
tossed, with a new and pleasurable thrill. He saw and ad
mired, but he was not ashamed.

All that he had come to say to her was forgotten, all
that he had framed to speak as he bore hastily on toward
the house had evaporated from his heated brain. A new
world turned its bright colors before his eyes, a new breadth
of life had been revealed, it seemed to him. In the pleasure
of his discovery he stood with no power in him but to trem
ble and stare.

The flush deepened in Ollie's cheeks. She understood what
was moving in his breast, for it is given to her kind to know
man before he knows himself. She feigned surprise to behold
him thus stricken, staring and silent, his face scarlet with
the surge of his hot blood.

With one slow-lifted hand she gathered the edffes of her

I~ ~

dress together, withdrawing the revealed secret of her breast.

" Why, Joe ! What arc you looking at, ? " she asked.

"You," he answered, his voice dry and hoarse, like that
of one who asks for water at the end of a race. He turned
away from her then, saying no more, and passed quickly
out of her sight beyond the shrubbery which shouldered the
kitchen wall.

82 The Hoiidboy

Slowly Ollic lifted the dasher which had settled to the
bottom of the churn, and a smile broke upon her lips. As
she went on with the completion of her task, she smiled still,
with lips, with eyes, with warm exultation of her strong
young body, as over a triumphant ending of some issue long
at balance and undefined.

Joe went away from the kitchen door in a strange da/e
of faculties. For that new feeling which leaped in him and
warmed him to the core, and gave him confidence in his
strength never before enjoyed, and an understanding of things
hitherto unrevealed, he was glad. But at heart lie felt that
he was a traitor to the trust imposed in him, and that he
had violated the sanctity of his master's home.

Xow he knew what it was that had made his cheeks flame
in anger and his blood leap in resentment when he saw OIlie
in the door that morning, all flushed and trembling from
Morgan's arms ; now he understood why he had lingered to
interpose between them in past (lavs. It was the wild, deep
fear of jealousy. lie was in love with his master's wife !
\Vhat had been given him to guard, he had looked upon
with unholy hunger ; that which had been left with him to
treasure, he had defiled with lustful eyes.

Joe struck across the fields, his work forgotten, now hot
with the mounting fires of his newlv discovered passion, now
cold with the swelling accusation of a trust betrayed. Jeal
ousy, and not a regard for his master's honor, had prompted
him to put her on her guard against Morgan. lie had
himself coveted his neighbor's wife. He had looked upon
a woman to lust after her, he had committed adultery in
his heart. Between him and Morgan there was no redeem
ing difference. One was as bad as the other, said Joe. Only
this difference ; he would stop there, in time, ashamed now
of the offending of his eves and the trespass of his heart.
Ollie did not know. lie had not wormed his way into her

A Stranger at the Gate 83

heart by pitying her unhappiness, like the false guest who
had emptied his lies into her ears.

Joe was able to see now how little deserving Isom was
of any such blessing as Ollie, how ill-assorted they were by
nature, inclination and age. But God had joined them,
for what pains and penances He alone knew, and it was not
the work of any man to put them apart.

At the edge of a hazel coppice, far away from the farm
house that sheltered the object of his tender thoughts and
furtive desires, Joe sat among the first fallen leaves of
autumn, fighting to clear himself from the perplexities of
that disquieting situation. In the agony of his aching con
science, he bowed his head and groaned.

A man's burden of honor had fallen upon him with the
disclosure of a man's desires. His boyhood seemed suddenly
to have gone from him like the light of a lamp blown out by
a puff of wind. He felt old, and responsible to answer now
for himself, since the enormity of his offense was plain to his
smarting conscience.

And he was man enough to look after Morgan, too. He
would proceed to deal with Morgan on a new basis, himself
out of the calculation entirely. Ollie must be protected
against his deceitful wiles, and against herself as well.

Joe trembled in his newer and clearer understanding of
the danger that threatened her as he hastened back to the
barn-yard to take up his neglected chores. The thought
that Morgan and Ollie were alone in the house almost threw
him into a fever of panic and haste.

He must not be guilty of such an oversight again ; he
must stand like a stern wall between them, and be able to
account for his trust to Isom with unclouded heart.

CHAPTER V

THE SECRET OF THE CLOVER

UNTIL the time he had entered Isom Chase's house,
temptation never had come near Joe Xewbolt. lie
never had kissed a maiden ; he never had felt the quickening
elixir of a soft breast pressed against his own. And so it
fell that the sudden conception of what he had unwittingly
come to, bore on him with a weight which his sensitive and
upright mind magnified into an enormous and crushing shame.
While his intention could bear arraignment and come awav
with acquittal, the fact that he had been perverted enough
in the grain, as he looked at it, to drift unknowingly into
love with another man's wife, galled him until his spirit
groaned.

Isom did not return that evening; the conclusion of his
household was that he had been chosen on a jury. Thev
discussed it at supper, Ollie nervously gay, Morgan full of
raucous laughter, Joe sober and grudging of his words.

Joe never had borne much of a hand at the table-talk
since Morgan came, and before his advent there was none
to speak of, so his taciturnity that evening passed without
a second thought in the minds of Ollie and her guest. They
had words enough for a house full of people, thought Joe.
as he saw that for everv word from the lips they sent two
speeding from their eves. That had become a language to
which he had found the llosetta Stone; it was as plain to him
now as Roman text.

Perhaps Morgan regarded her with an affection as sincere
as his own. He did not know; but he felt that it could not
be as blameless, for if Joe had desired her in the uninterpreted

84

85

passion of his full young heart, he had brought himself up
to sudden judgment before the tribunal of his conscience.
It would go no farther. He had put his moral foot down
and smothered his unholy desire, as he would have stamped
out a flame.

It seemed to Joe that there was something in Morgan's
eyes which betrayed his heart. Little gleams of his under
lying purpose which his levity masked, struck Joe from time
to time, setting his wits on guard. Morgan must be watched,
like a cat within leaping distance of an unfledged bird. Joe
set himself the task of watching, determined then and there
that Morgan should not have one dangerous hour alone
with Ollie again until Isom came back and lifted the responsi
bility of his wife's safety from his shoulders.

For a while after supper that night Joe sat on the bench
beside the kitchen door, the grape-vine rustling over his head,
watching Ollie as she went to and fro about her work of
clearing away. Morgan was in the door, his back against
the jamb, leisurely smoking his pipe. Once in a while a
snoring beetle passed in above his head to join his fellows
around the lamp. As each recruit to the blundering com
pany arrived, Morgan slapped at him as he passed, making
Ollie laugh. On the low, splotched ceiling of the kitchen the
flies shifted and buzzed, changing drowsily from place to
place.

" Isom ought to put screens on the windows and doors,"
said Morgan, looking up at the flies.

" Mosquito bar, you mean ? " asked Ollie, throwing him
a smile over her shoulder as she passed.

"No, I mean wire-screens, everybody's gettiir 'ein in now ;
I've been thinkin' of takin' 'em on as a side-line."

"It'll be a cold day in July when Isom spends any money
just to keep flics out of his house!" said she.

Morgan laughed.

86 TJic Rondboy

"Maybe if a person could show him that they eat up a
lot of stufT he'd come around to it," Morgan said.

"Maybe,'' said Ollie, and both of them had their laugh
again.

Joe moved on tlic bench, making it creak, an uneasy feeling
coming over him. Close as Isom was, and hard-handed and
mean, Joe felt that there was a certain indelicacy in his
wife's discussion of his traits with a stranger.

Ollie had cleared away the dishes, washed them and placed
them in the cupboard, on top of which the one clock of that
household stood, scar-faced, hut hoarse-voiced when it struck,
and strong as the challenge of an old cock. Already it
had struck nine, for they had hcen late in coming to supper,
owing to Joe's long set-to with his conscience at the edge of
the ha/el-copse in the woods.

Joe got up, stretching his arms, yawning.

"Goin' to he'd, heh ?" asked Morgan.

"No, I don't seem to feel sleepy tonight/' Joe replied.

He went into the kitchen and sat at the table, his elbows
on the hoard, his head in his hands, as if turning over some
difficult problem in his mind. Presently he fell to raking his
shaggy hair with his long fingers; in a moment it was as
disorderly as the swaths of clover hay lying out in the moon
light in the little stone-set field.

Morgan had filled his pipe, and was after a match at the
box behind the stove, with the familiarity of a household
inmate. lie winked at Ollie, who was then pulling down her
sleeves, her long day's work hcing done.

"Well, do you think you'll be elected ?" he asked, lounging
across to Joe, his hands in his pockets.

Morgan wore a shirt as gay-striped as a Persian tent, and
he had removed his coat so the world, or such of it as was
present in the kitchen, might behold it and admire. Joe
withdrew his hands from his forelock and looked at Morgan

The Secret of the Clover

curiously. The lad's eyes were sleep-heavy and red, and
he was almost as dull-looking, perhaps, as Morgan imagined
him to be.

" What did you say ? " he asked.

" I asked you if you thought you'd be elected this fall,"
repeated Morgan, in mock seriousness.

" I don't know what you mean," said Joe, turning from
him indifferently.

" Why, ain't you runnin' for President on the squash-vine
ticket ?" asked Morgan. " I heard you was the can'idate."

Joe got up from the table and moved his chair away with
his foot. As he was thus occupied he saw Ollie's shadow
on the wall repeat a gesture of caution which she made to
Morgan, a lifting of the hand, a shaking of the head. Even
the shadow betrayed the intimate understanding between
them. Joe went over and stood in the door.

" No use for you to try to be a fool, Morgan ; that's been
attended to for you already," said he.

There wasn't much heart in Morgan's laugh, but it would
pass for one on account of the volume of sound.

" Oh, let a feller have his joke, won't you, Joe ? " said he.

" Go ahead," granted Joe, leaning his shoulder against
the jamb, facing out toward the dark.

Morgan went over and put his hand on the great lad's
shoulder, with a show of friendly condescension.

"What would the world be without its jokes ?" he asked.
And then, before anybody could answer : " It'd be like home
without a mother."

Joe faced him, a slow grin spreading back to his ears.

" Or a ready-reckoner," said he.

Morgan's laugh that time was unfeigned.

" Joe, you've missed your callin'," said he. " You've got
no business foolin' away your time on a farm. With that
solemn, long-hungry look of yours you ought to be sellin'

88 The

consumption cure and ringbone ointment from the end of a

wagon on the square in Kansas City.*'

4%()r hooks, inavhe,1" suggested .Toe.

"\o-o-o," said Morgan thoughtfully, "I wouldn't just
say you're up to the level of hooks. But YOU might rise even
to hooks if you'd cultivate your mind and brain. Well, I
think I'll flv up to roost. I've got to take an carlv start in
the morning and clean up on this neck of the woods tomorrow.
Good night, folks.''

"I don't suppose Isom '11 be home tonight," Ollic ventured,
as Morgan's feet sounded on the stairs.

" Xo, I guess not,'' Joe agreed, staring thoughtfully at the
black oblong of the door.

" If he dot's come, I don't suppose it'll hurt him to cat
something cold," she said.

'* I'll wait up a while longer. If he comes I can warm
up the col'IVe for him," Joe offered.

" Then I'll go to bed. too." she yawned wearily.

" Yes, you'd better go," said he.

Ollie's room, which was Isom's also when he was there,
was in the front of the house, upstairs. Joe heard her feet
along the hall, and her door close after her. Morgan was
still tramping about in the room next to Joe's, where he slept.
It was the best room in the house, better than the one shared
by Isom and his wife, and in the end of the house opposite
to it. Joe sat quietlv at the table until Morgan's complaining
bed-springs told him that the guest had retired. Then he
mounted the narrow kitchen stairs to his own chamber.

Joe sat on the edge of his bed and pulled oil' his boots,
dropping them noisilv on the floor. Then, with shirt and
trousers on, he drew the quilt from his bed, took his pillow
under his arm, and opened the door into the hall which
divided the house from end to end.

The moon was shining in through the double window in the

Tlie Secret of the Clover 89

end toward Ollie's room ; it lay on the white floor, almost
as bright as the sun. Within five feet of that splash of
moonlight Joe spread his quilt. There he set his pillow
and stretched his long body diagonally across the narrow
hall, blocking it like a gate.

Joe roused Morgan next morning at dawn, and busied
himself with making a fire in the kitchen stove and bringing
water from the well until the guest came down to feed his
horse. Morgan was in a crusty humor. He had very little
to say, and Joe did not feel that the world was any poorer
for his silence.

" This will be my last meal with you," announced Morgan
at breakfast. " I'll not be back tonight,"

Ollie was paler than usual, Joe noticed, and a cloud of
dejection seemed to have settled over her during the night.
She did not appear to be great!}' interested in Morgan's
statement, although she looked up from her breakfast with
a little show of friendly politeness. Joe thought that she
did not seem to care for the agent ; the tightness in his
breast was suddenly and gratefully eased.

" You haven't finished out your week, there'll be something
coming to you on what 3Tou've paid in advance," said she.

" Let that go," said Morgan, obliterating all claim with
a sweep of his hand.

" I think you'd better take back what's coming to you,"'
suggested Joe.

Morgan turned to him with stiff severity.

"Are 3rou the watch-dog of the old man's treasurv?" he
sneered.

"Maybe I am, for a day or two," returned Joe, "and if
you step on me I'll bite."

He leveled his steady gray eyes at Morgan's shifting orbs,
and held them there as if to drive in some hidden import of
his words. Morgan seemed to understand. He colored,

90 The Bondboy

laughed shortly, and busied himself buttering a griddle-cake.

Ollic, pale and silent, had not looked up during this by-
passage between the two men. Her manner was of one who
expected something, which she dreaded and feared to face.

Morgan took the road early. Joe saw him go with a
feeling of relief. lie felt like a swollen barrel which had
burst its close-binding hoops, he thought, as he went back
to the place where he dropped his scythe yesterday.

As he worked through the long morning hours Joe
struggled to adjust himself to the new conditions, resulting
from the discovery of his own enlargement and understanding.
It would be a harder matter now to go on living there with
Ollie. Kach day would be a trial by fire, the weeks and
months a lengthening highway strewn with the embers of his
own smoldering passion. Something might happen, almost
any day, youth and youth together, galled bv the same hand
of oppression, that would overturn his peace forever. Yet,
he could not leave. The bond of his mother's making,
stamped with the seal of the law, held him captive there.

At length, after spending a harrowing morning over it, he
reached the determination to stand up to it like a man, and
serve Isom as long as he could do so without treason. When
the day came that his spirit weakened and his continence
failed, he would throw down the burden and desert. That he
would do, even though his mother's hopes must fall and his
own dreams of redeeming the place of his birth, to which he
was attached by a sentiment almost poetic, must dissolve like
vapor in the sun.

It was mid-afternoon when Joe finished his mowing and
stood casting his eves up to the skv for signs of rain. Then-
being none, lie concluded that it would be safe to allow
yesterday's cutting to lie another night in the field while he
put in the remainder of the day with his scythe in the lower
orchard plot, where the clover grew rank among the trees.

91

Satisfied that he had made a showing thus far with which
Isom could find no fault, Joe tucked the snath of his scythe
under his arm and set out for that part of the orchard
which lay beyond the hill, out of sight of the barn and
house, and from that reason called the "lower orchard" by
Isom, who had planted it with his own hand more than
thirty years ago.

There noble wine-sap stretched out mighty arms to fondle
willow-twig across the shady aisles, and maidenblush rubbed
cheeks with Spitzenberg, all reddening in the sun. Under
many of the trees the ground was as bare as if fire had
devastated it, for the sun never fell through those close-
woven branches from May to October, and there no clover
grew. But in the open spaces between the rows it sprang
rank and tall, troublesome to cut with a mower because of
the low-swinging, fruit-weighted limbs.

Joe waded into this paradise of fruit and clover bloom,
dark leaf and straining bough, stooping now and then to
pick up a fallen apple and try its mellowness with his thumb.
They were all hard, and fit only for cider }ret, but their rich
colors beguiled the e}re into betrayal of the palate. Joe fixed
his choice upon a golden willow-twig. As he stood rubbing
the apple on his sleeve, his eye running over the task ahead
of him in a rough estimate of the time it would require to
clean up the clover, he started at sight of a white object
dangling from a bough a few rods ahead of him. His
attention curiously held, he went forward to investigate,
when a little start of wind swung the object out from the
limb and he saw that it was a woman's sun-bonnet, hanging
basket-wise by its broad strings. There was no question
whose it was ; he had seen the same bonnet hanging in the
kitchen not three hours before, fresh from the ironing board.

Joe dropped his apple unbittcn, and strode forward,
puzzled a bit over the circumstance. He wondered what

7

92 The Komlboy

had brought Ollie down there.', and where she was then. She
never came to that part of the orchard to gather wind-falls
for the pigs- — she was not gathering them at. all during
Isom's absence, lie had relieved her of that — and there was
nothing else to call her away from the house at that time of
the dav.

The lush clover struck him mid-thigh, progress through
it was difficult. Joe lifted his feet like an Indian, toes turned
in a bit, and this method of walking made it appear as if lie
stalked something, for he moved without noise.

lie had dropped his scythe with the apple, his eves held
Olhe's swinging bonnet as he approached it as if it were
some rare bird which he hoped to steal upon and take. Thus
coming on, with high-lifted feet, his breath short from
excitement, Joe was within ten yards of the bonnet win 11
a voice sounded behind the intervening screen of clover
and boughs.

Joe dropped in his tracks, as if ham-strung, crouched in
the clover, pressed his hands to his mouth to stifle the gro;m
that rose to his lips. It was Morgan's voice. lie had conic
sneaking back while the watch-dog was oil' guard, secure 111
the belief that he had gone away. As Joe crouched there
hidden in the clover, trembling and cold with anger, Mor
gan's voice rose in a laugh.

''Well, I wouldn't have given him credit for that much
sense if I hadn't seen him with mv own eyes,*' said he.

"lie's smarter than he looks," said Ollie, their voict s
distinct in Joe's shamed ears, for it was as quiet in the
orchard as on the first day.

They both laughed over what she said.

"lie thinks I'm gone, he'll go to bed early tonight," said
Morgan. "Don't bother about bringing anything with you."

"Not even mv diamonds?" she laughed.

Morgan's gruffer mirth joined her, and Joe found himself

Tlie Secret of the Clover 93

straining to hear, although he despised himself for spying and
eavesdropping, even on guilt.

"We can get on without the diamonds," said Morgan,
" and I don't suppose you've got any ball dresses or sealskin
cloaks ? "

" Three calico wrappers that he's bought me, and a dress
or two that I had when I came," said Ollie, bitterly.

" You'll have all you want in a day or two, honey," said
Morgan, in comforting voice.

They were silent a while ; then Joe heard her ask the time.
Morgan told her it was half-past four.

"Oh, I had no idea it was that late — time goes so fast
when I'm with you ! I must go back to the house now, Joe
might come in and find me gone."

" Yes, I'd like to wring his damned neck ! " said Morgan.

" He's a good boy, Curtis," she defended, but with lightness,
"but he's a little- — "

She held her words back coquettishly.

" Heh ? " queried Morgan.

" Jealous, you old goose ! Can't you see it ? "

Morgan had a great laugh over that. From the sound
of his voice Joe knew that he was standing, and his whole
body ached with the fear that they would discover him lying
there in the clover. Not that he was afraid of Morgan, but
that he dreaded the humiliation which Ollie must suffer in
knowing that her guilt}7 tryst had been discovered.

" I'll meet you at the gate, I'll have the buggy on down
the road a little ways," Morgan told her. " There's only
a little while between you and liberty now, sweetheart."

Joe dared not look up nor move, but he needed no eyes'
to know that Morgan kissed her then. After that he heard
her running away toward the house. Morgan stood there a
little while, whistling softly. Soon Joe heard him going in
the direction of the road.

94- The Bondboy

Morgan was quite a distance ahead when Joe sprang out of
his concealment and followed him, for he wanted to give Ollie
time to pass beyond ear-shot of the orchard. As Joe made
no attempt to smother the sound of his feet, Morgan heard
him while he was still several yards behind him. lie turned,
stopped, and waited for Joe to come up.

Joe's agitation was plain in his face, his shocked eves
stared out of its pallor as if they had looked upon violence
and death.

''What's the matter, kid ?" inquired Morgan carelessly.

" I've got something to say to you," answered Joe thickly.
lie was panting, more from rage than exertion; his hands
trembled.

Morgan looked him over from boots to bandlcss hat with
the same evidence of curiosity as a person displays when
turning some washed-up object with the foot on the sands.
It was as if he had but an abstract interest in the youth, a
feeling which the incident had obtruded upon him without
penetrating the reserve of his private cogitations.

" Kid, you look like you'd seen a snake," said he.

"You let that woman alone — you've got to let her alone,
I tell you ! " said Joe with explosive suddenness, his passion
out of hand.

Morgan's face grew red.

"Mind your own business, you sneakin' skunk!" said he.

"I am minding it," said Joe; "but maybe not as well as I
ought to 'a' done. Isom left me here in his place to watch and
look after things, but you've sneaked in under my arm like
a dirty, thieving dog, and you've — you've —

Morgan thrust his fist before Joe's face.

"That'll do now — that'll do out of you!" he threatened.

Joe caught Morgan's wrist with a quick, snapping move
ment, and slowly bent the threatening arm down, Morgan
struggling, foot to foot with him in the test of strength. Joe

95

held the captured arm down for a moment, and they stood
breast to breast, glaring into each other's eyes. Then with
a wrench that spun Morgan half round and made him stagger,
Joe flung his arm free.

"Now, you keep away from here — keep away!" he
warned, his voice growing thin and boyish in the height of
his emotion, as if it would break in the treble shallows.

" Don't fool with me or I'll hurt you," said Morgan.
" Keep your nose "

" Let her alone ! " commanded Joe sternly, his voice sinking
again even below its accustomed level, gruff and deep in his
chest. " I heard you — I didn't mean to, but I couldn't help
it — and I know what you're up to tonight. Don't come
around here tonight after her, for I'm not going to let
her go."

" Ya-a, you pup, you pup ! " said Morgan nastily.

"It's a hard life for her here — I know that better than
you do," said Joe, passing over the insult, " but you can't
give her any better — not as good. What you've done can't be
undone now, but I can keep you from dragging her down any
further. Don't you come back here tonight ! "

" If you keep your fingers out of the fire," said Morgan,
looking at the ground, rolling a fallen apple with his toe,
" you'll not get scorched. You stick to your knittin' and
don't meddle with mine. That'll be about the healthiest thing
you can do ! "

" If Isom knew what you've done he'd kill you — if he's
even half a man," said Joe. " She was a good woman till
you came, you hound ! "

" She's a good woman yet," said Morgan, with some feeling,
" too good for that old hell-dog she's married to ! "

'' Then let her stay good — at least as good as she is,"
advised Joe.

" Oh, hell ! " said Morgan disgustedly.

96 The Bondboi/

"Yon can't have her," persisted Joe.

"We'll see about that, too," said Morgan, his manner and
voice threatening. "What're you goin' to do — pole oil and
tell the old man ? "

" I'll do what Isoin left me here to do, the rest of the time
he's away," said Joe. " Ollie shan't leave the house tonight."

" Yes, vou flat-bellied shad, you want her yourself — you're
stuck on her yourself, you fool! Yes, and you've got .just
about as much show of gittin' her as I have of jumpin' over
that tree!" derided Morgan.

''No matter what I think of her, good or bad, she'd he safe
with me," Joe told him, searching his face accusingly.

"Yes, of course she would!" scoffed Morgan. "You're
one of these saints that'll live all your life by a punkin and
never poke it with your finger. Oh, yes, I know your kind!"

" I'm not going to quarrel with you, Morgan, unless you
make me," said Joe; "but you've got the wrong end of the
stick. I don't want her, not the way you do, anyhow."

Morgan looked at him closely, then put out his hand with a
gesture of conciliation.

" I'll take that back, Joe," said he. " You're not that kind
of a kid. You mean well, but you don't understand. Look-a
here, let me tell vou, Joe: I love that little woman, kid, just
as honest and true as any man could love her, and she thinks
the world and all of me. I only want to take her away from
here because I love her and want to make her happy. Don't
you see it, kid? "

"How would you do that? You couldn't marry her."

" No! for a while, of course," admitted Morgan. "But the
old possum he'd get a divorce in a little while."

" Well, I'm not going to let her go," Joe declared, turning
away as if that settled the matter for good and all. "You've
done — I could kill you for what you've done!" said he, with
sudden vehemence.

The Secret of the Clover 97

Morgan looked at him curiously, his careless face softening.

" Now, see here, don't you look at it that way, Joe," he
argued. " I'm not so bad ; neither is Ollie. You'll understand
these matters better when you're older and know more about the
way men feel. She wanted love, and I gave her love. She's
been worked to rags and bones by that old devil ; and what
I've done, and what I want to do, is in kindness, Joe. I'll
take her away from here and provide for her like she was
a queen, I'll give her the love and comradeship of a young
man and make her happy, Joe. Don't }'ou see?"

" But you can't make her respectable," said Joe. " I'm
not going to let her leave with you, or go to you. If she wants
to go after Isom comes back, then let her. But not before.
Now, 3rou'd better go on away, Morgan, before I lose my
temper. I was mad when I started after you, but I've cooled
down. Don't roil me up again. Go on your way, and leave
that woman alone."

" Joe, you're a man in everything but sense," said Morgan,
not unkindly, " and I reckon if you and I was to clinch we'd
raise a purty big dust and muss things around a right smart.
And I don't know who'd come out on top at the finish, neither.
So I don't want to have any trouble with you. All I ask
of you is step to one side and leave us two alone in what we've
started to do and got all planned to carry out. Go to bed
tonight and go to sleep. You're not supposed to know that
anything's due to happen, and if }TOU sleep sound you'll find
a twenty-dollar bill under your hat in the morning."

The suggestion brought a blush to Joe's face. He set his
lips as if fighting down hot words before he spoke.

" If I have to tie her I'll do it," said Joe earnestly. " She
shan't leave. And if I have to take down that old gun from
the kitchen wall to keep you away from here till Isom comes
home, I'll take it down. You can come to the gate tonight
if you want to, but if you do —

08 The Handbag

Joe looked him straight in the eyes. Morgan's face lost
its color. lie turned as if to see that his horse was still
standing, and stood that way a little while.

'"I guess I'll drive on otl', Joe," said Morgan with a sigh,
as if he had reached the conclusion after a long consideration.

"All right," said Joe.

"No hard feelin's left behind me?" facing Joe again with
his old, self-assured smile. He offered his hand, but Joe did
not take it.

"As long as YOU never come back," said Joe.

Morgan walked to the fence, his head bent, thoughtfully.
Jot' followed, as if to satisfy himself that the wily agent was
not going to work some subterfuge, having small faith in his
promise to leave, much less in the probability that he would
stay awav.

Joe stood at the fence, looking after Morgan, long after
the dust of his wheels had settled again to the road. At last
he went back to the place where he had dropped his scythe,
and cut a swath straight through to the tree where Ollie's
bonnet had hung. And there he mowed the trampled clover,
and obliterated Jier footprints with his own.

The weight of his discovery was like some dead thing on
his breast. lie felt that Ollie had fallen from the high heaven
of his regard, never to mount to her place again. But Isom
did not know of this bitter thing, this shameful shadow af
his door. As far as it rested with him to hold the secret in
his heart, poison though it was to him, Isom should never
know.

CHAPTER VI

BLOOD

JOE had debated the matter fully in his mind before going
in to supper. Since he had sent her tempter away,
there was no necessity of taking Ollie to task, thus laying
bare his knowledge of her guilty secret. He believed that
her conscience would prove its own flagellant in the days
to come, when she had time to reflect and repent, away from
the debauching influence of the man who had led her astray.
His blame was all for Morgan, who had taken advantage of
her loneliness and discontent.

Joe now recalled, and understood, her reaching out to him
for sympathy ; he saw clearly that she had demanded some
thing beyond the capacity of his unseasoned heart to give.
Isom was to blame for that condition of her mind, first and
most severely of all. If Isom had been kind to her, and given
her only a small measure of human sympathy, she would have
clung to him, and rested in the shelter of his protection,
content against all the world. Isom had spread the thorns
for his own feet, in his insensibility to all human need of
gentleness.

Joe even doubted, knowing him as he did, whether the gray
old miser was capable of either jealousy or shame. He did
not know, indeed, what Isom might say to it if his wife's
infidelity became known to him, but he believed that he would
rage to insanity. Perhaps not because the sting of it would
penetrate to his heart, but in his censure of his wife's extrava
gance in giving away an affection which belonged, under the
form of marriage and law, to him.

Joe was ashamed to meet Ollie at the table, not for

99

100 The Itondbo?/

liiinsclf, l)ul for her. lie was afraid that his eves, or his
manner, might betray what he knew. lie might have spared
himsrlf this feeling of humiliation on her account, for Ollie,
all unconscious of his discovery, was bright and full of
smiles. Joe could not rise- to her level of light-hcartcdncss,
and, there being no common ground between them, he lapsed
into his old-time silence over his plate.

After supper Joe flattened himself against the kitchen wall
where he had sat the night, before on the bench outside the
door, drawing back into the shadow. There he sat and
thought it over again, unsatisfied to remain silent, yet afraid
to speak. lie did not want to be unjust, for perhaps she
did not intend to meet Morgan at all. In addition to this
doubt of her intentions, he had the hope that Isom would
come verv soon. lie decided at length that he would go
to bed and lie awake until he heard Ollie pass up to her room,
when he would slip down again and wait. If she came down,
he would know that she intended to carry out her part of
the compact with Morgan. Then he could tell her that
Morgan would not come.

Ollie was not long over her work that night. When Joe
heard her door close, he took his boots in his hand and went
downstairs. lie had left his hat on the kitchen table, accord
ing to his nightlv custom; the moonlight coming in through
the window reminded him of it as he passed. lie put it on.
thinking that he would take a look around the road in the
vicinity of the gate, for he suspected that Morgan's submis
sive going masked some iniquitous intent. Joe pulled on hi>
boots, sitting in the kitchen door, listening a moment before
he closed it after him, and walked softly toward the road.

A careful survey as far as he could see in the bright moon
light, satisfied him that Morgan had not left his horse and
buggy around there anywhere. lie might come later. Joe
decided to wait around there and sec.

Blood 101

It was a cool autumn night ; a prowling wind moved silently.
Over hedgerow and barn roof the moonlight lay in white
radiance ; the dusty highway beyond the gate was changed
by it into a royal road. Joe felt that there were memories
abroad as he rested his arms on the gate-post. Moonlight
and a soft wind always moved him with a feeling of indefinite
and shapeless tenderness, as elusive as the echo of a song.
There was a soothing quality in the night for him, which
laved his bruised sensibilities like balm. lie expanded under
its influence; the tumult of his breast began to subside.

The revelations of that day had fallen rudely upon the
youth's delicately tuned and finely adjusted nature. He had
recoiled in horror from the sacrilege which that house had
suffered. In a measure he felt that he was guilty along with
Ollie in her unspeakable sin, in that he had been so stupid as
to permit it.

But, he reflected as he waited there with his hand upon the
weathered gate, great and terrible as the upheaval of his day-
world had been, the night had descended unconscious of it.
The moonlight had brightened untroubled by it ; the wind had
come from its wooded places unhurried for it, and unvexed.
After all, it had been only an unheard discord in the eternal,
vast harmony. The things of men were matters of infinitesi
mal consequence in nature. The passing of a nation of men
would not disturb its tranquillity as much as the falling of
a leaf.

It was then long past the hour when he was habitually
asleep, and his vigil weighed on him heavily. No one had
passed along the road ; Morgan had not come in sight. Joe
was weary from his day's internal conflict and external toil.
He began to consider the advisability of returning to bed.

Perhaps, thought he, his watch was both futile and unjust.
Ollie did not intend to keep her part in the agreement.
She must be burning with remorse for her transgression.

102 The Bondboy

He turned and walked slowly toward the house, stopping
a little way along to look back and make sure that Morgan
had not appeared. Thus he stood a little while, and then
resumed his way.

The house was before him, shadows in the sharp angles
of its roof, its windows catching the moonlight like wakeful
eves. There was a calm over it, and a somnolent peace. It
seemed impossible that iniquitous desires could live and grow
on a night like that. Ollie must be asleep, said he, and
repentant in her dreams.

Joe felt that he might go to his rest with honest v. It
would be welcome, as the desire of tired youth for its bed
is strong. At the well he stopped again to look back for
Morgan.

As he turned a light flashed in the kitchen, gleamed a
moment, went out suddenly. It was as if a match had been
struck to look for something quickly found, and then blown
out with a puff of breath.

At once the fabric of his hopes collapsed, and his honest
attempts to lift Ollie back to her smirched pedestal and invest
her with at least a part of her former purity of heart, came
to a painful end. She was preparing to leave. The hour
when he must speak had come.

He approached the door noiselessly. It was closed, as he
had left it, and within everything was still. As he stood
hesitating before it, his hand lifted to lay upon the latch, his
heart laboring in painful lunges against his ribs, it opened
without a sound, and Ollie stood before him against the
background of dark.

The moonlight came down on him through the half-bare
arbor, and fell in mottled patches around him where he stood,
his hand still lifted, as if to help her on her way. Ollie caught
her breath in a frightened start, and shrank back.

"You don't need to be afraid, Ollie — it's Joe," said he.

Blood 103

" Oh, you scared me so ! " she panted.

Each then waited as if for the other to speak, and the
silence seemed long.

"Were you going out somewhere?" asked Joe.

" No ; I forgot to put away a few things, and I came down,"
said she. " I woke up out of my sleep thinking of them," she
added.

" Well ! " said he, wronderingly. " Can I help you anv>
Ollie?"

" No ; it's only some milk and things," she told him. " You
know how Isom takes on if he finds anything undone. I was
afraid he might come in tonight and see them."

" Well ! " said Joe again, in a queer, strained way.

He was standing in the door, blocking it with his body,
clenching the jamb with his hands on either side, as if to bar
any attempt that she might make to pass.

"Will you strike a light, Ollie? I want to have a talk
with you," said he gravely.

"Oh, Joe!" she protested, as if pleasantly scandalized by
the request, intentionally misreading it.

"Have you got another match in your hand? Light the
lamp."

"Oh, what's the use?" said she. "I only ran down for a
minute. We don't need the light, do we, Joe? Can't you
talk without it?"

" No ; I want you to light the lamp," he insisted.

" I'll not do it ! " she flared suddenly, turning as if to go
to her room. " You've not got any right to boss me around
in my own house ! "

" I don't suppose I have, Ollie, and I didn't mean to," said
he, stepping into the room.

Ollie retreated a few steps toward the inner door, and
stopped. Joe could hear her excited breathing as he flung
his hat on the table.

104 The

" Ollic, what I've got to say to you lias to be said sooner
or later tonight, and you'd just as well hear it now," said
Joe, trying to assure her of his friendly intent by speaking
softly, although his voice was tremulous. "Morgan's gone;
he'll not be back- — at least not tonight/'

"Morgan?" said she. ''What do you mean — what do I
care where he's gone?"

Joe made no reply. lie fumbled for the box behind the
stove and scraped a slow sulphur match against the pipe.
Its light discovered Ollie shrinking against the wall where she
had stopped, near the door.

She was wearing a straw hat, which must have been a part
of her bridal gear. A long white veil, which, she wore scarf-
wise over the front display of its ilowers and fruits, came
down and crossed behind her neck. Its ends dangled upon
her breast. The dress was one that Joe never had seen her
wear before, a girlish white thing with narrow ruffles. lie
wondered as he looked at her with a great ache in his heart,
how so much seeming puritv could be so base and foul. In
that bitter moment he cursed old Isom in his heart for goad
ing her to this desperate bound. She had been starving for
a man's love, and for the lack of it she had thrown herself
away on a dog.

Joe fitted the chimney on the burner of the lamp, and stood
in judicial seriousness before her, the stub of the burning
match wasting in a little bla/.e between his fingers.

'; Morgan's gone," he repeated. " and he'll never come back.
I know all about you two, and what you'd planned to do."

Joe dropped the stub of the match and set his loot on it.

Ollie stared at him, her face as white as her bridal dress,
her eves big, like a barn-yard animal's eyes in a lanternV
light. She was gathering and wadding the ends of her veil
in her hands; her lips were open, showing the points of her
small, white teeth.

Blood 105

" Isom — he'll kill me ! " she whispered.

" Isom don't know about it," said Joe.

"You'll tell him!"

"No."

Relief flickered in her face. She leaned forward a little,
eagerly, as if to speak, but said nothing. Joe shrank back
from her, his hand pressing heavily upon the table.

" I never meant to tell him," said he slowly.

She sprang toward him, her hands clasped appealingly.

" Then you'll let me go, you'll let me go? " she cried eagerly.
" I can't stay here," she hurried on, " you know I can't stay
here, Joe, and suffer like he's made me suffer the past year !
You say Morgan won't come —

" The coward, to try to steal a man's wife, and deceive
you that way, too ! " said Joe, his anger rising.

" Oh, you don't know him as well as I do ! " she defended,
shaking her head solemnly. " He's so grand, and good, and
I love him, Joe — oh, Joe, I love him ! "

" It's wrong for you to say that ! " Joe harshly reproved
her. " I don't want to hear you say that ; you're Isom's wife."

" Yes, God help me," said she.

" You could be worse off than you are, Ollie ; as it is you've
got a name! "

"What's a name when you despise it?" said she bitterly.

" Have you thought what people would say about you if
you went away with Morgan, Ollie?" inquired Joe gently.

" I don't care. We intend to go to some place where we're
not known, and —

" Hide," said Joe. " Hide like thieves. And that's what
you'd be, both of you, don't you see? You'd never be com
fortable and happy, Ollie, skulking around that way."

" Yes, I would be happy," she maintained sharply. " Mr.
Morgan is a gentleman, and he's good. He'd be proud of me,
he'd take care of me like a lady."

100 The Hondboy

" For a little while maybe, till he found somebody else that
he thought more of," said Joe. "When it comes so easy to
take one man's wife, he wouldn't stop at going off with
another."

"It's a lie — you know it's a lie! Curtis Morgan's a
gentleman, I tell you, and I'll not hear you run him down!'1

"Gentlemen and ladies don't have to hide," said Joe.

"You're lying to me!" she charged him suddenly, her face
coloring angrily, "lie wouldn't go away from here on the
say-so of a kid like you. lie's down there waiting for me,
and I'm going to him."

" I wouldn't deceive you, Ollie," said he, leaving his post
near the door, opening a wav for her to pass. " If you think
he's there, go and see. But I tell you he's gone. He asked
me to shut mv eves to this thing and let vou and him carry
it out; but I couldn't do that, so he went away."

She knew he was not deceiving her, and she turned on him
with reproaches.

" You want to chain me here and see me work myself to
death for that old miserly Isom!" she stormed. "You're
just as bad as he is; you ain't got a soft spot in your heart."

"Yes, I'd rather see you stay here with Isom and do a
nigger woman's work, like you have been doing ever since
you married him. than let you go away with Morgan for on<>
mistaken day. What you'd have to face with him would kill
you quicker than work, and you'd suffer a thousand times
more sorrow."

"What do you know about it?" she sneered. "You never
loved anybody; That's the way with you religious fools —
you don't get any fun out of life yourselves, and you want
to spoil everybody else's. Well, you'll not spoil mine, I tell
you. I'll go to Morgan this very night, and you can't stop
me ! "

"Well, we'll see about that, Ollie," he told her, showing a

Blood 107

little temper. " I told him that I'd keep you here if I had
to tie you, and I'll do that, too, if I have to. Isom —

" Isom, Isom ! " she mocked. " Well, tell Isom }TOU spied on
me and tell the old fool what you saw — tell him, tell him!
Tell him all you know, and tell him more ! Tell the old devil
I hate him, and always did hate him ; tell him I've got out of
bed in the middle of the night more than once to get the ax
and kill him in his sleep ! Tell him I wish he was dead and
in hell, where he belongs, and I'm sorry I didn't send him
there ! What do I care about Isom, or 3'ou, or anybody
else, you spy, you sneaking spy !"

" I'll go with you to the road if you want to see if he's
there," Joe offered.

Ollie's fall from the sanctified place of irreproachable
womanhood had divested her of all awe in his eyes. He spoke
to her now as he would have reasoned with a child.

"' No, I suppose you threatened to go after Isom, or some
thing like that, and he went away," said she. " You couldn't
scare him, he wouldn't run from you. Tomorrow he'll send
me word, and I'll go to him in spite of you and Isom and
everything else. I don't care — I don't care — you're mean
to me, too! you're as mean as you can be!"

She made a quick tempestuous turn from anger to tears,
lifting her arm to her face and hiding her eyes in the bend
of her elbow. Her shoulders heaved ; she sobbed in childlike
pity for herself and the injury which she seemed to think
she bore.

Joe put his hand on her shoulder.

" Don't take on that way about it, Ollie," said he.

" Oh, oh ! " she moaned, her hands pressed to her face now ;
" why couldn't you have been kind to me ; why couldn't you
have said a good word to me sometimes ? I didn't have a
friend in the world, and I was so lonesome and tired and —
and — - and — everything ! "

108 Tlic Itondboi/

Her reproachful appeal was disconcerting to Joe. How
could he tell her that he had not understood her striving and
yearning to reach him, and that at last understanding, he
had been appalled by the enormity of his own heart's desire.
He said nothing for a little while, but took her by one tear-
wet hand and led her away from the door. Near the table
he stopped, still holding her hand, stroking it tenderly with
comforting touch.

''Never mind, Ollie," said lie at last; "you go to bed now
and don't Ihink any more about going away with Morgan.
If I thought it was best for your peace and happiness for
you to go, I'd step out of the way at once. But he'd drag
you down, Ollie, lower than any woman you ever saw, for
they don't have that kind of women here. Morgan isn't as
good a man as Isom is, with all his hard ways and stinginess.
If he's honest and honorable, he can wait for you till Isom
dies. He'll not last more than ten or fifteen years longer,
and you'll be young even then, Ollie. I don't suppose any
body ever gets too old to be happy any more than they
get too old to be sad."

" \o, I don't suppose they do, Joe," she sighed.

She had calmed down while he talked. Now she wiped her
eyes on her veil, while the last convulsions of sobbing shook
her now and then, like the withdrawing rumble of thunder
after a storm.

"I'll put out the light, Ollie," said he. "You go on to
bed."

"Oh, Joe, Joe!" said she in a little pleading, meaningless
way; a little way of reproach and softness.

She lifted her tear-bright eyes, with the reflection of her
subsiding passion in them, and looked yearningly into his.
Ollie suddenly found herself feeling small and young, penitent
and frail, in the presence of this quickly developed man. His
strength seemed to rise above her, and spread round her,

Blood 109

and warm her in its protecting folds. There was comfort in
him, and promise.

The wife of the dead viking could turn to the living victor
with a smile. It is a comforting faculty that has come down
from the first mother to the last daughter ; it is as ineradica
ble in the sex as the instinct which cherishes fire. Ollie was
primitive in her passions and pains. If she could not have
Morgan, perhaps she could yet find a comforter in Joe. She
put her free hand on his shoulder and looked up into his face
again. Tears were on her lashes, her lips were loose and
trembling.

" If you'd be good to me, Joe ; if you'd only be good and
kind, I could stay," she said.

Joe was moved to tenderness by her ingenuous sounding
plea. He put his hand on her shoulder in a comforting way.
She was very near him then, and her small hand, so lately
cold and tear-damp, was warm within his. She threw her
head back in expectant attitude ; her yearning eyes seemed
to be dragging him to her lips.

"I will be good to you, Ollie; just as good and kind as I
know how to be," he promised.

She swayed a little nearer ; her warm, soft body pressed
against him, her bright young eyes still striving to draw him
down to her lips.

'' Oh, Joe, Joe," she murmured in a snuggling, contented
way.

Sweat sprang upon his forehead and his throbbing temples,
so calm and cool but a moment before. He stood trembling,
his damp elf-locks dangling over his brow. Through the
half-open door a little breath of wind threaded in and made
the lamp-blaze jump; it rustled outside through the lilac-
bushes like the passing of a lady's gown.

Joe's voice was husky in his throat when he spoke.

" You'd better go to bed, Ollie," said he.

110 The Bondboy

lie still clung foolishly to her willing hand as he led her
to the door opening to the stairs.

" Xo, vou go on up first, Joe,"' she said. "I want to put
the wood in the stove ready to light in the morning, and set
a few little things out. It'll give me r. minute longer to sleep.
You can trust me now, Joe," she protested, looking earnestly
into his eyes, " for I'm not going away with Morgan now."

" I'm glad to hear you say that, Ollie," he told her,
unfeigned pleasure in his voice.

" I want you to promise me you'll never tell Isom," said
she.

''I never intended to tell him," he replied.

She withdrew her hand from his quickly, and quickly both
of them fled to his shoulders.

" Stoop down,'' she coaxed vith a seductive, tender pressure?
of her hands, " and tell me, Joe."

Isom's step fell on the porch. lie crashed the door back
against the wall as he came in, and Joe and Ollie fell apart
in guilty haste. Isom stood for a moment on the threshold,
ama/ement in his staring eyes and open mouth. Then a
cloud of rage swept him, he lifted his huge, hairy fist above
his head like a club.

"I'll kill you!" he threatened, covering the space between
him and Joe in two long strides.

Ollie shrank away, half stooping, from the expected blow,
her hands raised in appealing defense. Joe put up his opi-n
hand as if to check Isom in his assault.

" Hold on, Isom; don't you hit me," he said.

Whatever Isom's intention had been, he contained himself.
He stopped, facing Joe, who did not yield an inch.

''Hit you, you whelp!" said Isom, his lips flattened back
from his teeth. "I'll do more than hit you. You— lie
turned on Ollie: "I saw vou. You've disgraced me! I'll
break every bone in your body! I'll throw you to the hogs ! "

_ Blood _ 111

"If you'll hold on a minute and listen to reason, Isom,'
you'll find there's nothing at all like you think there is," said
Joe. " You're making a mistake that you may be sorry for."

" Mistake ! " repeated Isom bitterly, as if his quick-rising
rage had sunk again and left him suddenly weak. " Yes, the
mistake I made was when I took you in to save you from the
poorhouse and give you a home. I go away for a day and
come back to find you tv,-o clamped in each other's arms
so close together I couldn't shove a hand between you. Mis-

" That's not so, Isom," Joe protested indignantly.

" Heaven and hell, didn't I see you ! " roared Isom.
" There's law for you two if I want to take it on you, but
what's the punishment of the law for what you've done on
me? Law ! No, by God ! I'll make my own law for this case.
I'll kill both of you if I'm spared to draw breath five minutes
more!"

Isom lifted his long arm in witness of his terrible intention,
and cast his glaring eyes about the room as if in search of
a weapon to begin his work.

" I tell you, Isom, nothing wrong ever passed between
me and your wife," insisted Joe earnestly. " You're making
a terrible mistake."

Ollie, shrinking against the wall, looked imploringly at Joe.
He had promised never to tell Isom what he knew, but how
was he to save himself now without betraying her? Was he
man enough to face it out and bear the strain, rush upon
old Isom and stop him in his mad intention, or would he
weaken and tell all he knew, here at the very first test of his
strength? She could not read his intention in his face, but
his eyes were frowning under his gathered brows as he
watched every move that old Isom made. He was leaning
forward a little, his arms were raised, like a wrestler waiting
for the clinch.

112 The Bondboy

Isom's face was as gray as ashes that have lain through
many a rain. lie stood where he had stopped at Joe's warn
ing, and now was pulling up his sleeves as if to begin his
bloody work.

" You two conspired against me from the first," he charged,
his voice trembling; "you conspired to eat me holler, ami
now you conspire to bring shame and disgrace to my grav
hairs. I trust you and depend on you, and I come home —

Isonfs arraignment broke off suddenly.

lie stood with arrested jaw, gazing intently at the table.
Joe followed his eyes, but saw nothing on the table to hold
a man's words and passions suspended in that strange man
ner. Nothing was there but the lamp and Joe's old brown
hat. That lay there, its innocent, battered crown presenting
to Joe's eyes, its broad and pliant brim tilted up on the
farther side as if resting on a fold of itself.

It came to Joe in an instant that Isom's anger had brought
paralvsis upon him. lie started forward to assist him,
Isom's name on his lips, when Isom leaped to the table with
a smothered cry in his throat. lie seemed to hover over
the table a moment, leaning with his breast upon it, gather
ing sonic object to him and hugging it under his arm.

"Great God!" panted Isom in shocked voice, standing
straight between them, his left arm pressed to his breast as
if it covered a mortal wound. lie twisted his neck and glared
at Joe, but he did not disclose the thing that he had gathered
from the table.

"Great God!" said he again, in the same shocked, panting
voice.

" Isom," began Joe, advancing toward him.

Isom retreated quickly. lie ran to the other end of the
table where he stood, bending forward, hugging his secret to
his breast as if lie meant to defend it with the blood of his
heart. He stretched out his free hand to keep Joe away.

Blood 113

" Stand off ! Stand off ! " he warned.

Again Isom swept his wild glance around the room. Near
the door, on two prongs of wood nailed to the wall, hung the
gun of which Joe had spoken to Morgan in his warning. It
was a Kentucky rifle, long barreled, heavy, of two generations
past. Isom used it for hawks, and it hung there loaded and
capped from year's beginning to year's end. Isom seemed
to realize when he saw it, for the first time in that season
of insane rage, that it offered to his hand a weapon. He
leaped toward it, reaching up his hand.

" I'll kill you now! " said he.

In one long spring Isom crossed from where he stood and
seized the rifle by the muzzle.

" Stop him, stop him !" screamed Ollie, pressing her hands
to her ears.

" Isom. Isom ! " warned Joe, leaping after him.

Isom was wrenching at the gun to free the breech from the
fork when Joe caught him by the shoulder and tried to drag
him back.

"Look out — the hammer!" he cried.

But quicker than the strength of Joe's young arm, quicker
than old Isom's wrath, was the fire in that corroded cap ;
quicker than the old man's hand, the powder in the nipple of
the ancient gun.

Isom fell at the report, his left hand still clutching the
secret thing to his bosom, his right clinging to the rifle-
barrel. He lay on his back where he had crashed down, as
straight as if stretched to a line. His staring eyes rolled,
all white ; his mouth stood open, as if in an unuttered cry.

CHAPTER VII

DELIVERANCE

JOK, stunned bv the sudden tragedy, stood for a moment
as lie had stopped when he laid his hand on Isom's shoul
der. Ollie, on the other side of the fallen man, leaned over
and peered into his face.

In that moment a wild turmoil of hopes and fears leaped in
her hot brain. Was it deliverance, freedom? Or was it onlv
another complication of shame and disgrace? Was he dead,
slain bv his own hand in the baseness of his own heart? Or
was he onlv hurt, to rise \ip again presently with revilings
and accusations, to make the future more terrible than the
past. Did this end it ; did this come in answer to her prayers
for a bolt to fall on him and wither him in his tracks?

Kven in that turgid moment, when she turned these specula
tions, guilty hopes, wild fears, in her mind, Isom's eyelids
quivered, dropped; and the sounding breath in his nostrils
ceased.

Isom Chase lay dead upon the floor. In the crook of his
elbow rested a little time-fingered canvas bag, one corner of
which had broken open in his fall, out of which poured the
golden gleanings of his hard and bitter years.

On the planks beneath his shoulder-blades, where his feet
had come and gone for fortv years, all leached and whitened
by the strong lye of countless scrubbing* at the hands of the
old wife and the new, his blood ran down in a little stream.
It gathered in a cupped and hollowed plank, and stood there
in a little pool, glistening, black. His wife saw her white
face reflected in it as she raised up from peering into his
blank, dead eyes.

11-1

Deliverance 115

" Look at his blood ! " said she, hoarsely whispering.
"Look at it — look at it!"

" Isom ! Isom ! " called Joe softly, a long pause between1
his words, as if summoning a sleeper. He stooped over, touch
ing Isoin's shoulder.

There was a trickle of blood on Isom's beard, where the
rifle ball had struck him in the throat ; back of his head that
vital stream was wasting, enlarging the pool in the hollowed
plank near Ollic's foot.

" He's dead ! " she whispered.

Again, in a flash, that quick feeling of lightness, almost
joyful liberty, lifted her. Isom was dead, dead! What she
had prayed for had fallen. Cruel, hard-palmed Isom, who
had gripped her tender throat, was dead there on the floor
at her feet ! Dead by his own act, in the anger of his loveless
heart.

" I'm afraid he is," said Joe, dazed and aghast.

The night wind came in through the open door and vexed
tliG lamp with harassing breath. Its flame darted like a
serpent's tongue, and Joe, fearful that it might go out and
leave them in the dark with that bleeding corpse, crossed over
softly and closed the door.

Ollie stood there, her hands clenched at her sides, no stir
ring of pity in her heart for her husband with the stain of
blood upon his harsh, gray beard. In that moment she was
supremely selfish. The possibility of accusation or suspicion
in connection with his death did not occur to her. She was
too shallow to look ahead to that unpleasant contingency.
The bright lure of liberty was in her eyes; it was dancing in
her brain. As she looked at Joe's back the moment he stood
with hand on the door, her one thought was:

" Will he tell ? "

Joe came back and stood beside the lifeless form of Isom,
looking down at him for a moment, pity and sorrow in his

110 Tlic Rondbot/

face. Then lie tiptoed far around the body and took up his
hat from the floor where it had fallen in Isom's scramble for
the sack of gold.

''What are \ve going to do?" asked Ollie, suddenly afraid.

"'I'll go afler the doctor, but he can't help him anv," said
Joe. " I'll wake up the Greenings as I go by and send some
of them over to stay with you."

"Don't have me here with it — don't leave me!" begged
Ollie. "I can't stay here in the house with it alone!"

She shrank away from her husband's body, unlovely in
death as he had been unloved in life, and clung to Joe's
arm.

But a little while had passed since Isom fell — perhaps not
yet five minutes — but someone had heard the shot, someone
was coming, running, along the hard path between gate and
kitchen door. Ollie started.

'"Listen!" she said. "They're coming! What will you
say?"

"Go upstairs," he commanded, pushing her toward the
door, harshness in his manner and words. ''It'll not do for
you to be found here all dressed up that way."

"What will you tell them — what will you say?" she in
sisted, whispering.

"(TO upstairs; let me do the talking," lie answered, waving
her away.

A heavy foot struck the porch, a heavy hand beat, a sum
mons on the door. Ollie's white dress gleamed a moment in
the dark passage leading to the stairs, the Hying end of her
veil glimmered.

" Come in." called Joe.

Sol Greening, their neighbor, whose gate was almost oppo
site Isom's, whose barn was not eighty rods from the kitchen
door, stood panting in the lamplight, his heavy beard lifting
and falling on his chest.

Deliverance 117

"What — what's happened — who was that shootin' —
Isom! God A'mighty, is he hurt?"

" Dead," said Joe dully, standing hat in hand. He looked
dazedly at the excited man in the door, whose mouth was
open as he stared fearfully at the corpse.

" How ? Who done it ? " asked Greening, coming in on
tiptoe, his voice lowered to a whisper, in the cautious fashion
of people who move in the vicinity of the sound-sleeping dead.
The tread of living man never more would disturb old Isom
Chase, but Sol Greening moved as silently as a blowing leaf.

" Who done it ? " he repeated.

" He did," answered Joe.

" He done it ! " repeated Greening, looking from the rifle,
still clutched in Isom's hand, to the gold in the crook of his
arm, and from that to Joe's blanched face. " He done it ! "

"Jerking down the gun," explained Joe, pointing to the
broken rack.

" Jerkin' down the gun ! What'd he want — look — look at
all that money! The sack's busted — it's spillin' all over
him!"

" He's dead," said Joe weakly, " and I was going after
the doctor."

" Stone dead," said Greening, bending over the body ; " they
ain't a puff of breath left in him. The doctor couldn't do
him no good, Joe, but I reckon —

Greening straightened up and faced Joe, sternly.

"Where's Missis Chase?" he asked.

" Upstairs," said Joe, pointing.

" Does she know? Who was here when it happened? "

" Isom and I," said Joe.

" God A'mighty ! " said Greening, looking at Joe fearfully,
"just you and him?"

" We were alone," said Joe, meeting Greening's eyes unf al-
teringly. "We had some words, and Isom lost his temper.

118 The Bomlboy

He jumped for the gun and I tried to stop him, but he jerked
it by the barrel and the hammer caught."

"Broke his neck,'' said Greening, mouth and eyes wide
open ; " broke it clean ! Where'd that money come from? "

"I don't know," said Joe; "I didn't scc'it till he fell."

"Words!" said Greening, catching at it suddenly, as if
what Joe had said had only then penetrated his understand
ing. "You and him had some words!"

" Yes, we had some words," said Joe.

"Where's Missis Chase?" demanded Greening again, turn
ing his eyes suspiciously around the room.

"Upstairs, I told you Sol," replied Joe. "She went to
bed early."

"Hush!" cautioned Greening, holding up his hand, listen
ing intently. "I hear her movin' around. Let me talk t»
her."

lie tiptoed to the door at the foot of the stairs, and
listened again ; tiptoed back to the outer portal, which lie had
left swinging behind him, and closed it gently. There was
no sound from above now to indicate that Ollie was awake.
Sol stood near Isom's body, straining and listening, his hand
to his ear.

" She must 'a' been turnin' over in bed." said he. "Well, I
guess I'll have to call her. I hate to do it, but she's got to
be told."

" Yes, she must be told," said Joe.

Sol stood as if reflecting on it a little while. Joe was on the
other side of Isom's body, near the table. Both of them
looked down into his bloodless face.

"You had words!" said Greening, looking sternly at Joe.
"What about?"

"It was a matter between him and me. Sol, it don't con
cern anybody else," said Joe in a manner of dignity and
reserve that was blunter than his words. Sol was not im-

Deliverance 119

pressed by this implied rebuke, and hint to mind his own
business.

" That ain't no answer," said he.

" Well, it will have to do for you, Sol," said Joe.

" I don't know about that," declared Sol. " If you can't
give me the straight of it, in plain words, I'll have to take
you up."

Joe stood thoughtfully silent a little while. Then he raised
his head and looked at Sol steadily.

"If there's any arresting to be done — ' he began, but
checked himself abruptly there, as if he had reconsidered
what he started to say. " Hadn't we better pick Isom up off
the floor?" he suggested.

" No, no ; don't touch him," Greening interposed hurriedly.
" Leave him lay for the coroner ; that's the law."

" All right."

" I'll have to tell Missis Chase before we go," said Sol.

" Yes, you must tell her," Joe agreed.

Sol rapped on the woodwork of the wall at the bottom of
the stairs with his big knuckles. The sound rose sudden and
echoing in the house. Ollie was heard opening her door.

"Missis Chase — oh, Missis Chase!" called Greening.

" Who's that, who's that ? " came Ollie's voice, tremulous
and frightened, little above a whisper, from above.

" It's Sol Greening. Don't come down here, don't come
down ! "

"What was that noise? It sounded like a gun," said Ollie,
a bit nearer the head of the stairs, her words broken and
disjointed.

" Something's happened, something mighty bad," said Sol.
"You stay right where you are till I send the old woman
over to you — do you hear me? — stay right there!"

"Oh, what is it, what is it?" moaned Ollie. "Joe —
where's Joe? Call him, Mr. Greening, call Joe!"

120 TJic Bondboy

" He's here," Sol assured licr, his voice full of portent,
"he's goin' away with me for a little while. I tell you it's
terrible, you must stay right up there."

"Oh, I'm so afraid — I'm so afraid!" said Ollie, coming
nearer.

"Go back! Go back!" commanded Greening.

" If you'll only stick to it that way," thought Joe as Ollie's
moans sounded in his ears.

"Was it robbers — is somebody hurt?" she asked.

"Yes, somebody's hurt, and hurt bad," said Greening,
"but you can't do no good by comin' down here. You stay
right there till the old woman comes over; it'll only be a
minute."

"Let me go with you. Oh, Mr. Greening, don't leave me
here alone! " she implored.

"There's nothing to hurt you, Ollie," said Joe. "You do
as Sol tells you and stay here. Go to your room and shut
the door, and wait till Mrs. Greening comes."

Sol leaned into the staircase and listened until lie heard her
door close. Then he turned and shut the kitchen window and
the door leading into the body of the house, leaving the burn
ing lamp on the table to keep watch over Isom and his money.

"We'll go out the front way," said Sol to Joe. "Nothing
must be touched in that room till the coroner orders it. Now,
don't you try to dodge me, Joe."

"I've got no reason to want to dodge any man," said Joe.

"Well, for your own sake, as well as your old mother's, I
hope to God you ain't!" said Sol. "But this here thing
looks mighty bad for somebody, Joe. I'm goin' to take you
over to Bill Frost's and turn you over to the law."

Joe made no comment, but led the way around the house.
At the kitchen window Greening laid a restraining hand on
Joe's shoulder and stopped him, while lie looked in at the
corpse of Isom Chase.

Deliverance 121

"Him and me, we served on the same jury this afternoon,"
said Sol, nodding toward the window as he turned away.
" I rode to overtake him on the way home, but he had the
start of me; and I was just goin' in the gate when I heard
that shot. I poled right over here. On the same jury, and
now he's dead ! "

As they approached the gate Joe looked back, the events
of the past few minutes and the shock of the tragedy, which
had fallen as swift as a lightning stroke, stunning him out of
his usual cool reasoning.

There lay the house, its roof white in the moonlight, a little
stream of yellow coming through the kitchen window, striking
the lilac-bushes and falling brokenly on the grass beyond.
There was reality in that ; but in this whirl of events which
crowded his mind there was no tangible thing to lay hold
upon.

That Isom was dead on the kitchen floor seemed impossible
and unreal, like an event in a dream which one struggles
against the terror of, consoling himself, yet not convincingly,
as he fights its sad illusions, with the argument that it is
nothing but a vision, and that with waking it will pass away.

What was this awful thing with which Sol Greening had
charged him, over which the whole neighborhood soon must
talk and conjecture?

Murder !

There was no kinder word. Yet the full terror of its mean
ing was not over him, for his senses still swirled and felt
numb in the suddenness of the blow. He had not meant that
this accusation should fasten upon him when he sent Ollie
from the room; he had not thought that far ahead. His one
concern was that she should not be found there, dressed and
ready to go, and the story of her weakness and folly given
heartlessly to the world.

And Curtis Morgan — where was he, the man to blame for

122 TJic Bondboy

all this thing? Not far away, thought Joe, driving that,
white road in security, perhaps, even that very hour, while
he, who had stood between him and his unholy desires, was
being led awav bv Sol Greening like a calf in a rope They
were m)in£ to charge him with the murder of Isoin Chase and

o o o

take him away to jail.

How far would Morgan permit them to go? Would he
come forward to bear his share of it, or would he skulk away
like a coward and leave him, the bondman, to defend the name
of his dead master's wife at the cost of his own honor and
liberty, perhaps his life?

All that had gone before Lsom threw his life away in that
moment of blind anger, must be laid bare if he was to free
himself of the shadow of suspicion. It was not the part of
an honorable man to seek his own comfort and safety at the
cost of a woman's name, no matter how unworthy he knew her
to be, while that name and fame still stood flawless before
the world. In the absence of some other avenue to vindica
tion, a gentleman must suffer in silence, even to death It
would be cruel, unjust, and hard to bear, but that was the
only way. He wondered if ()!!ie understood.

But there were certain humiliations and indignities which
a gentleman could not bend his neck to; and being led away
by an inferior man like Sol Greening to be delivered up, just
as if he thought that lie might have run away if given an
opening, was one of them. Sol had passed on through the
open gate, which he had not stopped to close when he ran
in, before he noticed that Joe was not following. He looked
back. Joe was standing inside the fence, his arms folded
across his chest.

"Come on here!" ordered Sol.

" Xo, I'm not going any farther with you, Sol," said Joe
quietly. ''If there's any arresting to be done, I guess I can
do it myself."

Deliverance 123

Greening was a self-important man in his small-bore way,
who saw in this night's tragedy fine material for increasing
his consequence, at least temporarily, in that community.
The first man on the bloody scene, the man to shut up the
room for the coroner, the man to make the arrest and deliver
the murderer to the constable — all within half an hour. It
was a distinction which Greening did not feel like yielding.

" Come on here, I tell you ! " he commanded again.

" If you want to get on your horse and go after Bill, I'll
wait right here till he comes," said Joe ; " but I'll not go any
farther with you. I didn't shoot Isom, Sol, and you know it.
If you don't want to go after Bill, then I'll go on over there
alone and tell him what's happened. If he wants to arrest
me then, he can do it."

Seeing that by this arrangement much of his glory would
get away from him, Greening stepped forward and reached
out his hand, as if to compel submission. Joe lifted his own
hand to intercept it with warning gesture.

" No, don't you touch me, Sol ! " he cautioned.

Greening let his hand fall. He stepped back a pace, Joe's
subdued, calm warning penetrating his senses like the sound
of a blow on an anvil. Last week this gangling strip of a
youngster was nothing but a boy, fetching and carrying in
Isom Chase's barn-yard. Tonight, big and bony and broad-
shouldered, he was a man, with the same outward gentleness
over the iron inside of him as old Peter Newbolt before him ;
the same soft word in his mouth as his Kentucky father, who
had, without oath or malediction, shot dead a Kansas Redleg,
in the old days of border strife, for spitting on his boot.

"Will you go, or shall I?" asked Joe.

Greening made a show of considering it a minute.

" Well, Joe, you go on over and tell him yourself," said he,
putting on the front of generosity and confidence, "I know
you won't run off."

12 i The Bomlboy

" If I had anything to run off for, I'd go as quick as any
body, I guess,'' said Joe.

"I'll go and fetch the old lady over to keep company with
Mrs. Chase," said Sol, hurriedly striking across the road.

Joe remained standing there a little while. The growing
wind, which marked the high tide of night, lifted his hat-brim
and let the moonlight fall upon his troubled face. Around
him was the peace of the sleeping earth, with its ripe harvest
in its hand; the scents of ripe leaves and fruit came out of
the orchard; the breath of curing clover from the fields.

Joe brought a horse from the barn and leaped on its bare
back. He turned into the highroad, lashing the animal with
the halter, and galloped away to summon Constable Bill
Frost.

Past hedges he rode, where cricket drummers beat the long
roll for the muster of winter days; past gates letting into
fields, clamped and chained to their posts as if jealous of the
plenty which they guarded; past farmsteads set in dark for
ests of orchard trees and tall windbreaks of tapering poplar,
where never a light gleamed from a pane, where sons and
daughters, worn husbandmen and weary wives, lav sooth* d
in honest slumber; past barn-yards, where cattle sighed as
they lay in the moonshine champing upon their cuds; do\\n
into swales, where the air was damp and cold, like a wet hand
on the face; up to hill-crests, over which the perfumes of
autumn were blowing — the spices of goldenrod and ragweed,
the elusive scent of hedge orange, the sweet of curing fodder
in the shock ; past peace and contentment, and the ripe re
ward of men's summer toil.

Isom Chase was dead; stark, white, with blood upon bis
beard.

There a dog barked, far away, raising a ripple on the
placid night; there a cock crowed, and there another caught
his cry; it passed on, on. fading away eastward, traveling

Deliverance 125

like an alarm, like a spreading wave, until it spent itself
against the margin of breaking day.

Isom Chase was dead, with an armful of gold upon his
breast.

Aye, Isom Chase was dead. Back there in the still house
his limbs were stiffening upon his kitchen floor. Isom Chase
was dead on the eve of the most bountiful harvest his lands
had 3rielded him in all his toil-freighted years. Dead, with
his fields around him ; dead, with the maize dangling heavy
ears in the white moonlight ; dead, with the gold of pumpkin
lurking like unminted treasure in the margin of his field.
Dead, with fat cattle in his pastures, fat swine in his con
fines, sleek horses in his barn-stalls, fat cockerels on his perch ;
dead, with a young wife shrinking among the shadows above
his cold forehead, her eyes unclouded by a tear, her panting
breast undisturbed by a sigh of pity or of pain.

CHAPTER VIII

WILL HE TELL?

CONSTABLE Bill Frost was not a man of such acute
suspicion as Sol Greening. lie was a thin, slow man
with a high, sharp nose and a sprangling, yellow mustache
which extended broadly, like the horns of a steer. It did not
enter his mind to connect Joe with the tragedy in a criminal
way as they rode together back to the farm.

When they arrived, they found Sol Greening and his
married son Dan sitting on the front steps. Mrs. Greening
was upstairs, comforting the young widow, who was " racked
like a fiddle," according to Sol.

Sol took the constable around to the window and pointed
out the body of Isom stretched beside the table.

" You're a officer of the law," said Sol, " and these here
primisis is now in your hands and charge, but I don't think
you orto go in that room. I think you orto leave him lay,
just the way he dropped, for the coroner. That's the la\v."

Frost was of the same opinion. lie had no stomach for
prying around dead men, anyhow.

"We'll leave him lay, Sol," said he.

"And it's my opinion that you orto put handcuffs on that
feller," said Sol.

"Which feller?" asked Bill.

"That boy Joe," said Sol.

"Well, I ain't got any, and I wouldn't put 'em on him if
I had," said Bill. "lie told me all about how it happened
when we was comin' over. Why, you don't suspiciont he done
it, do you, Sol?"

"Circumstantial evidence," said Sol, fresh from jury >er-

126

Will He Tell? 127

vice and full of the law, " is dead ag'in' him, Bill. If I was
you I'd slap him under arrest. They had words, you know."

" Yes ; he told me they did," said Bill.

" But he didn't tell you what them words was about," said
Sol deeply.

The constable turned to Sol, the shaft of suspicion working
its way through the small door of his mind.

" By ganny ! " said he.

" I'd take him up and hand him over to the sheriff in the
morning," advised Sol.

" I reckon I better do it," Frost agreed, almost knocked
breathless by the importance of the thing he had overlooked.

So they laid their heads together to come to a proper
method of procedure, and presently they marched around the
corner of the house, shoulder to shoulder, as if prepared to
intercept and overwhelm Joe if he tried to make a dash for
liberty.

They had left Joe sitting on the steps with Dan, and now
they hurried around as if they expected to find his place
empty and Dan stretched out, mangled and bleeding. But
Joe was still there, in friendly conversation with Dan, show
ing no intention of running away. Frost advanced and laid
his hand on Joe's shoulder.

"Joe Newbolt," said he, "I put }TOU under arrest on the
suspiciont of shootin' and murderin' Isom Chase in cold
blood."

It was a formula contrived between the constable and Sol.
Sol had insisted on the " cold blood." That was important
and necessary, he declared. Omit that in making the arrest,
and you had no case. It would fall through.

Joe stood up, placing himself at the immediate disposal
of the constable, which was rather embarrassing to Bill.

"Well, Bill, if you think it's necessary, all right," said he.

" Form of law demands it," said Sol.

128 The Bondboy

" But you might wait anrl sec wlmt the coroner thinks about
it,'' suggested Joe.

'" Perliminaries," said Greening in his deep way.

Then the question of what to do with the prisoner until
morning arose. Joe pointed out that they could make no
disposition of him, except to hold him in custody, until the
coroner had he-Id an inquest into the case and a conclusion
had heen reached by the .jury. lie suggested that thcv allow
him to go to bed and get some needed sleep.

That seemed to be a very sensible suggestion, according to
Hill's view of it. Hut Sol didn't know whether it would V
a regular proceeding and in strict accord with the forms of
law. Indeed, he was of the opinion, after deliberating a while,
that it would weaken the case materially. lie was strongly
in favor of handcuffs, or, in the absence of regulation mana
cles, a half-inch rope.

After a great deal of discussion, during which Frost ke >t
his hand officiously on Joe's shoulder, it was agreed that the
prisoner should be allowed to go to bed. lie was to be lodged
in the spare room upstairs, the one lately occupied by Mor
gan. Frost escorted him to it, and locked the door.

''Is they erry winder in that room?" asked Sol, when Hill
came back.

"Reckon so," said Frost, starting nervously. "I didn't
look."

"Hetter sec," said Sol, getting up to investigate.

They went round to the side of the house. Yes, there was
a window, and it was wide open.

Hut any doubt that the prisoner might have cscap d
through it was soon quieted by the sound of his snore. Joe
had thrown himself across the bed, boots and all, and \\ us
already shoulder-deep in sleep. They decided that, at day
light, Sol's son should ride to the county-seat, seven miles
distant, and notify the coroner.

Will He Tell? 129

During the time they spent between Joe's retirement and
daybreak, Sol improved the minutes by arraigning, convict
ing, and condemning Joe for the murder of old Isom. lie did
it so impressively that he had Constable Frost on edge over
the tremendous responsibility that rested on his back. Bill
was in a sweat, although the night was cool. He tiptoed
around, listening, spying, prying ; he stood looking up at
Joe's window until his neck ached ; he explored the yard for
hidden weapons and treasure, and he peered and poked with
a rake-handle into shrubbery and vines.

They could hear the women upstairs talking once in a while,
and now and again they caught the sound of a piteous moan.

" She ain't seen him," said Sol ; " I wouldn't let her come
down. She may not be in no condition to look on a muss like
that, her a young woman and only married a little while."

Bill agreed on that, as he agreed on every hypothesis which
Sol propounded out of his wisdom, now that his official heat
had been raised.

" If I hadn't got here when I did he'd 'a' skinned out with
all of that money," said Sol. " He was standin' there with
his hat in his hand, all ready to scoop it up."

" How'd he come to go after me? " asked Bill.

"Well, folks don't always do things on their own accord,"
said Sol, giving Bill an unmistakable look.

"Oh, that was the way of it," nodded Bill. " I thought it
was funny if he —

"He knowcd he didn't have a ghost of a chance to git
away between me and you," said Sol.

Morning came, and with it rode Sol's son to fetch the
coroner.

Sol had established himself in the case so that he would
lose very little glory in the day's revelations, and there
remained one pleasant duty yet which he proposed to take
upon himself. That was nothing less than carrying the news

130 The Bondboy

of the tragedy and Joe's arrest to Mrs. Newbolt in her lonely
home at the foot of the hill.

Sol's son spread the news as he rode through the thin
morning to the county-seat, drawing up at barn-yard gates,
hailing the neighbors on the way to their fields, pouring the
amazing story into the avid ears of all who met him. Sol
carried the story in the opposite direction, trotting his
horse along full of leisurely importance and the enjoyment of
the distinction which had fallen on him through his early
connection with the strange event. When they heard it, men
turned hack from their fields and hastened to the Chase farm,
to peer through the kitchen window and shock their toil-
blimted senses in the horror of the scene.

Curiosity is stronger than thrift in most men, and those
of that community were no better fortified against it than
others of their kind. Long before Sol Greening's great
lubberly son reached the county-seat, a crowd had gathered
at the farmstead of Isom Chase. Bill Frost, now bristling
with the dignity of his official power, moved among them
soberly, the object of great respect as the living, moving
embodiment of the law.

Yesterday he was only Bill Frost, a tenant of rented land,
filling an office that was only a name; this morning he was
Constable Bill Frost, with the power and dignity of the State
of Missouri behind him, guarding a house of mystery and
death. Law and authority had transformed him overnight,
settling upon him as the spirit used to come upon the prophets
in the good old days.

Bill had only to stretch out his arm, and strong men would
fall back, pale and awed, away from the wall of the house;
he had but to caution them in a low word to keep hands off
everything, to be instantly obeyed. They drew away into
the yard and stood in low-voiced groups, the process of
thought momentarily stunned by this terrible thing.

Will He Tell? 131

"Ain't it awful?" a graybeard would whisper to a strip
ling youth.

"Ain't it terrible?" would come the reply.

"Well, well, well! Oldlsom!"

That was as far as any of them could go. Then they
would walk softly, scarcely breathing, to the window and
peep in again.

Joe, unhailed and undisturbed, was spinning out his sleep.
Mrs. Greening brought coffee and refreshments for the young
widow from her own kitchen across the road, and the sun rose
and drove the mists out of the hollows, as a shepherd drives
his flocks out to graze upon the hill.

As Sol Greening hitched his horse to the Widow New-
bolt's fence, he heard her singing with long-drawn quavers
and lingering semibreves :

There is a fountain filled with blood,
Draivn from Immanuers veins ....

She appeared at the kitchen door, a pan in her hand, a
flock of expectant chickens craning their necks to see what
she had to offer, at the instant that Sol came around the
corner of the house. She all but let the pan fall in her amaze
ment, and the song was cut off between her lips in the middle
of a word, for it was not more than six o'clock, uncommonly
early for visitors.

"Mercy me, Sol Greening, you give me an awful jump!"
said she.

" Well, I didn't aim to," said Sol, turning over in his mind
the speech that he had drawn up in the last uninterrupted
stage of his journey over.

Mrs. Newbolt looked at him sharply, turning her head a
little' with a quick, pert movement, not unlike one of her hens.

" Is anybody sick over your way?" she asked.

She could not account for the earlv visit in anv other

manner. People commonly came for her at all hours of the
day and night when there was somebody sick and in need of
a herb-wise nurse. She had helped a threat many of the young
ones of that community into the world, and she had eased the
pains of many old ones who were quitting it. So she thought
that Greening's visit must have something to do with either
life or death.

" \o, nobody just azackly sick," dodged Greening.

" Well, laws my soul, you make a might v mvstcrv over it!
What's the matter — can't you talk?"

" But I can't say, Missis Xewbolt, that everybody's just
a/ackly well," said he.

"Some of your folks?"

" \o, not none of mine," said Sol.

"Then whose?" she inquired impatiently.

" Isom's," said he.

''You don't mean my Joe?" she asked slowly, a shadow of
pain drawing her face.

" I mean Isom," said Sol.

"Isom?" said she, relieved. "Why didn't Joe come after
me?" Before Sol could adjust his program to meet this
unexpected exigency, she demanded: "Well, what's the matter
with Isom?"

"Dead," said Sol, dropping his voice impressively.

"You don't mean — well, shades of mercy, Isom dead!
What was it — cholera-morbus? "

" Killed," said So] ; "shot down with his own gun and killed
as dead as a dornix."

"His own gun! Well, sakes — who done it?"

" Only one man knows," said Sol, shaking his head
solemnly. " I'll tell you how it was."

Sol started away back at the summons to jury service,
worked up to the case in which he and Isom had sat together,
followed Isom then along the road home, and galloped to

Witt He Tell? 133

overtake him. He arrived at his gate — all in his long and
complete narrative — again, as he had done in reality the
night past ; he heard the shot in Isom's house ; he leaped to
the ground ; he ran. He saw a light in the kitchen of Isom's
house, but the door was closed ; he knocked, and somebody
called to him to enter. He opened the door and saw Isom
lying there, still and bloody, money — gold money — all over
him, and a man standing there beside him. There was no
body else in the room.

"Shades of mercy!" she gasped. "Who was that man?"

Sol looked at her pityingly. He put his hand to his fore
head as if it gave him pain to speak.

" It was your Joe," said he.

She sighed, greatly lightened and relieved.

" Oh, then Joe he told you how it happened? " said she.

"Ma'am," said Sol impressively, "he said they was alone
in the kitchen when it happened; he said him and Isom had
some words, and Isom he reached up to pull down the gun,
and the hammer caught, and it went off and shot him. That's
what Joe told me, ma'am."

" Well, Sol Greening, you talk like you didn't believe him ! "
she scorned. " If Joe said that, it's so."

" I hope to God it is ! " said Sol, drawing a great
breath.

If Sol had looked for tears, his eyes were cheated; if he
had listened for screams, wailings, and meanings, his ears
were disappointed. Sarah Newbolt stood straight and
haughtily scornful in her kitchen door, her dark eyes bright
between their snapping lids.

"Where's Joe?" she asked sternly.

" He's over there," said Sol, feeling that he had made a
noise like a peanut-bag which one inflates and smashes in the
palm in the expectation of startling the world.

"Have they took him up?"

134 The Bondboi/

" Well, you sec, Bill Frost's kind of kccpin' his eye on him
till the inquest," explained Sol.

"Yes, and I could name the man that put him up to it,"
said she.

"Well, circumstantial evidence— " began Sol.

"Oh, circumstance your granny!" she stopped him pet
tishly.

Mrs. Newbolt emptied her pan among the scrambling fowls
by turning it suddenly upside down. That done, she reached
behind her and put it on the table. Her face had grown hard
and severe, and her eyes were fierce.

"Wouldn't believe my boy!" said she bitterly. "Are you
going over that way now?"

" Guess I'll be riclin' along over."

"Well, you tell Joe that I'll be there as quick as shank's
horses can carry me," she said, turning away from the door,
leaving Sol to gather what pleasure he was able out of the
situation.

She lost no time in primping and preparing, but was on the
road before Sol had gone a quarter of a mile.

Airs. Newbolt cut across fields, arriving at the Chase farm
almost as soon as Sol Greening did on his strawberry roan.
The coroner had not come when she got there ; Bill Frost
allowed Joe to come down to the unused parlor of old Isom's
house to talk with her. Frost showed a disposition to linger
within the room and hear what was said, but she pushed
him out.

"I'll not let him run off, Bill Frost," said she. "If he'd
•wanted to run, if he'd had anything to run from, he could
'a' gone last night, couldn't he, you dunce?"

She closed the door, and no word of what passed between
mother and son reached the outside of it, although Bill Frost
strained his ear against it, listening.

When the coroner arrived in the middle of the forenoon he

Witt lie Tell? 135

found no difficulty in obtaining a jury to inquire into Isom's
death. The major and minor male inhabitants of the entire
neighborhood were assembled there, every qualified man of
them itching to sit on the jury. As the coroner had need of
but six, and these being soon chosen, the others had no
further pleasure to look forward to save the inquiry into the
tragedy.

After examining the wound which caused Isom's death, the
coroner had ordered the body removed from the kitchen floor.
The lamp was still burning on the table, and the coroner blew
it out ; the gold lay scattered on the floor where it had fallen,
and he gathered it up and put it in the little sack.

When the coroner went to the parlor to convene the inquest,
the crowd packed after him. Those who were not able to
get into the room clustered in a bunch at the door, and pro
truded themselves in at the windows, silent and expectant.

Joe sat with his mother on one hand, Constable Frost on
the other, and across the room was Ollie, wedged between fat
Mrs. Sol Greening and her bony daughter-in-law, who claimed
the office of ministrants on the ground of priority above all
the gasping, sympathetic, and exclaiming females who had
arrived after them.

Ollie was pale and exhausted in appearance, her face drawn
and bloodless, like that of one who wakes out of an anes
thetic after a surgical operation upon some vital part. Her
eyes were hollowed, her nostrils pinched, but there was no
trace of tears upon her cheeks. The neighbors said it was
dry grief, the deepest and most lasting that racks the human
heart. The}7 pitied her, so young and fair, so crushed and
bowed under that sudden, dark sorrow.

Mrs. Greening had thrown something black over the young
widow's shoulders, of which she seemed unaware. It kept
slipping and falling down, revealing her white dress, and Mrs.
Greening kept adjusting it with motherly hand. Sitting

13G The Bondboij

bent, like an old woman, Ollie twisted and wound her nervous,
hot fingers in her hip. Now and then she lifted her eves
to Joe's, as if struggling to read what intention lay behind
the pale calm of his face.

No wonder she looked at him wild and fearful, people said.
It was more than anybody could understand, that sudden
development of fierce passion and treachery in a boy who
always had been so shy and steady. Xo wonder she ga/ed
at him that way, poor thing!

Of course they did not dream how far they were from
interpreting that look in the young widow's eyes. There was
one question in her life that morning, and one only, it seemed.
It stood in front of the future and blocked all thought of
it like a heavy door. Over and over it revolved in her mind.
It was written in fire in her aching brain.

When thev put Joe Xewbolt on the witness-stand and asked
him how it happened, would he stand true to his first inten
tion and protect her, or would he betray it all?

That was what troubled Ollie. She did not know, and in
his face there was no answer.

Sol Greening was the first witness. He told again to
the jury of his neighbors the story which he had gone
over a score of times that morning. Mrs. Xewbolt nodded
when he related what Joe had told him, as if to say there
was no doubt about that ; Joe had told her the same thing.
It was true.

The coroner, a quick, sharp little man with a beard of
unnatural blackness, thick eyebrows and sleek hair, helped
him along with a question now and then.

" There was nobody in the room but Joe Xewbolt when
you arrived?"

"Nobody else — no livin' body/' replied Sol.

"No other living body. And Joe Xewbolt was standing
beside the body of Isom Chase, near the head, you say?"

Will He Tell? 137

"Yes, near Isom's head."

"With his hat in his hand, as if he had just entered the
room, or was about to leave it? "

Sol nodded.

" Do you know anything about a man who had been board
ing here the past week or two?"

The coroner seemed to ask this as an afterthought.

" Morgan," said Sol, crossing his legs the other way for
relief. "Yes, I knowed him."

" Did you see him here last night ? "

"No, he wasn't here. The old lady said he stopped in at
our house yesterday morning to sell me a ready-reckoner."

Sol chuckled, perhaps over what he considered a narrow
escape.

"I was over at Shelbyville, on the jury, and I wasn't
there, so he didn't sell it. Been tryin' to for a week. He
told the old lady that was his last day here, and he was
leavin' then."

"And about what time of night was it when you heard
the shot in Isom Chase's house, and ran over?"

" Along about first rooster-crow," said Sol.

"And that might be about what hour?"

" Well, I've knowed 'em to crow at 'leven this time o' year,
and ag'in I've knowed 'em to put it off as late as two. But
I should judge that it was about twelve when I come over
here the first time last night."

Sol was excused with that. He left the witness-chair with
ponderous solemnity. The coroner's stenographer had taken
down his testimony, and was now leaning back in his chair
as serenely as if unconscious of his own marvelous accom
plishment of being able to write down a man's words as fast
as he could talk.

Not so to those who beheld the feat for the first time. They
watched the young man, who was a ripe-cheeked chap with

138 The Bondboy

pale hair, as if they expected to catch him in the fraud and
pretense of it in the end, and lay bare the deceit -which he
practised upon the world.

The coroner was making notes of his own, stroking his
black beard thoughtfully, and in the pause between witnesses
the assembled neighbors had the pleasure of inspecting the
parlor of dead Isom Chase which they had invaded, into
which, living, he never had invited them.

Isom's first wife had arranged that room, in the hope of her
young heart, years and years ago. lis walls were papered
in bridal gaiety, its colors still bright, for the full light of
day seldom fell into it as now. There hung a picture of
that bride's father, a man with shaved lip and a forest of
beard from ears to Adam's apple, in a little oval frame;
and there, across the room, was another, of her mother,
Quakerish in look, with smooth hair and a white something
on her neck and bosom, held at her throat by a portrait
brooch. On the table, just under that fast-writing young
man's eyes, was a glass thing shaped like a cake cover, pro
tecting some flowers made of human hair, and sprigs of
bachelor's button, faded now, and losing their petals.

There hung the marriage certificate of Isom and his first
wife, framed in tarnished gilt which was flaking from the
wood, a blue ribbon through a slit in one corner of the
document, like the pendant of a seal, and there stood the
horsehair-upholstered chairs, so spare of back and thin of
shank that the rustics would stand rather than trust their
corn-fed weight upon them. Underfoot was a store-bought
carpet, as full of roses as the Klysian Fields, and over by
the door lay a round, braided rag mat, into which Isom's
old wife had stitched the hunger of her heart and the brine
of her lonely tears.

The coroner looked up from his little red-leather note-book.

".Joe Xcwbolt, step over here and be sworn," said he.

Will He Tell? 139

Joe crossed over to the witness-chair, picking his way
through feet and legs. As he turned, facing the coroner, his
hand upraised, Ollie looked at him steadily, her fingers flut
tering and twining.

Twelve hours had made a woeful change in her. She was
as gaunt as a suckling she-hound, an old terror lay lurking
in her young eyes. For one hour of dread is worse than a
year of weeping. One may grieve, honestly and deeply, with
out wearing away the checks or burning out the heart, for
there is a soft sorrow which lies upon the soul like a deaden
ing mist upon the autumn fields. But there is no worry
without waste. One day of it will burn more of the fuel of
human life than a decade of placid sorrow.

How much would he tell ? Would it be all — the story of
the caress in the kitchen door, the orchard's secret, the
attempt to run away from Isom — or would he shield her in
some manner? If he should tell all, there sat an audience
ready to snatch the tale and carry it away, and spread it
abroad. Then disgrace would follow, pitiless and driving,
and Morgan was not there to bear her away from it, or to
mitigate its sting.

Bill Frost edged over and stood behind the witness chair.
His act gave the audience a thrill. " He's under arrest ! "
they whispered, sending it from car to ear. Most of them
had known it before, but there was something so full and
satisfying in the words. Not once before in years had there
been occasion to use them ; it might be years again before
another opportunity presented. They had an official sound,
a sound of adventure and desperation. And so they whis
pered them, neighbor nodding to neighbor in deep under
standing as it went round the room, like a pass-word in
secret conclave: "He's under arrest!"

There was nobody present to advise Joe of his rights. He

had been accused of the crime and taken into custodv, vet
10

140 Tlic Bondboi/

they were calling on him no\v to give evidence which might
be used against him. If he had any doubt about the- legality
of the proceeding, lie was too certain of (lie outcome of the
inquiry to hesitate or demur. There was not a shadow of
doubt in his mind that his neighbors, men who had knov. u
him all his life, and his father before him, would acquit him
of all blame in the matter and set him free. They would
believe him, assuredly. Therefore, he answered cheerfully
when the coroner put the usual questions concerning age
and nativity. Then the coroner leaned back in his chair.

" Xow, Joe, tell the jury just how it happened," said
he.

The .jury looked up with a little start of guilt at the
coroner's reference to itself, presenting a great deal of
whiskers and shocks of untrimmed hair, together with some
reddening of the face. For the jury had been following the
movements of the coroner's stenographer, as if it, also, ex
pected to catch him in the trick of it that would incriminate
him and send him to the penitentiary for lift'.

'' I'd been down to the barn and out by the gate, looking
around," said Joe. There he paused.

"Yes; looking around," encouraged the coroner, believing
from the lad's appearance and slow manner that he had a
dull fellow in hand. "Now, what were you looking around
for, Joe ? "

kt I had a kind of uneasy feeling, and I wanted to see if
everything was safe," said Joe.

"Afraid of horse-thieves, or something like that?"

'* Something like that," nodded Joe.

Mrs. Xewbolt, sitting very straight-backed, held her lips
tight, for she was impressed with the seriousness of the
occasion. Xow and then she nodded, as if confirming to her
self some foregone conclusion.

" Isom had left me in charge of the place, and I didn't

Will He Tell? 141

want him to come back and find anything gone," Joe ex
plained.

" I see," said the coroner in a friendly way. " Then what
did you do? "

" I went back to the house and lit the lamp in the kitchen,"
said Joe.

"How long was that before Isom came in?"

" Only a little while ; ten or fifteen minutes, or maybe less."

"And what did Isom say when he came in, Joe? "

" He said he'd kill me, he was in a temper," Joe replied.

" You had no quarrel before he said that, Isom just burst
right into the room and threatened to kill you, did he, Joe ?
Now, you're sure about that? "

" Yes, I'm perfectly sure."

"What had you done to send Isom off into a temper that
way?"

" I hadn't done a thing," said Joe, meeting the coroner's
gaze honestly.

The coroner asked him concerning his position in the room,
what he was doing, and whether he had anything in his hands
that excited Isom when he saw it.

" My hands were as empty as they are this minute," said
Joe, but not without a little color in his cheeks when he
remembered how hot and small Ollie's hand had felt within
his own.

"When did you first see this?" asked the coroner, holding
up the sack with the burst corner which had lain on Isom's
breast.

The ruptured corner had been tied with a string, and the
sack bulged heavily in the coroner's hand.

" When Isom was l}7ing on the floor after he was shot,"
said Joe.

A movement of feet was audible through the room. People
looked at each other, incredulity in their eyes. The coroner

142 Tlie Bondbo?/

returned to the incidents which led up to the shooting,
snapping back to that phase of the inquiry suddenly, as if
in the expectation of catching Joe off his guard.

"What did he threaten to kill you for? " he asked sharplv.

" Well, Isoin was an unreasonable and quick-tempered
man," Joe replied.

The coroner rose to his feet in a quick start, as if lie
intended to leap over the table. He pointed his finger at
Joe, shaking his somber beard.

" What did Isom Chase catch you at when he came into
that kitchen?" he asked accusingly.

"lie saw me standing there, just about to blow out the
light and go to bed," said Joe.

"What dkl you and Isom quarrel about last night?"

Joe did not reply at once. He seemed debating with him
self over the advisability of answering at all. Then he raised
his slow eyes to the coroner's face.

" That was between him and me," said he.

"Very well," said the coroner shortly, resuming his seat.
'* You may tell the jury how Isom Chase was shot."

Joe described Isom's leap for the gun, the struggle he
had with him to restrain him, the catching of the lock in the
fork as Isom tugged at the barrel, the shot, and Isom's
death.

When he finished, the coroner bent over his note-book again,
as if little interested and less impressed. Silence fell over
the room. Then the coroner spoke, his head still bent over
the book, not even turning his face toward the witness, his
voice soft and low.

"You were alone with Isom in the kitchen when this
happened? "

A flash of heat ran over Ollie's body. After it came a
sweeping wave of cold. The room whirled; the world stood
on edge. Her hour had struck; the last moment of her

Will He Tell? 143

troubled security was speeding away. What would Joe
answer to that?

" Yes," said Joe calmly, " we were alone."

Ollie breathed again ; her heart's constriction relaxed.

The coroner wheeled on Joe.

"Where was Mrs. Chase?" he asked.

A little murmur, as of people drawing together with
whispers; a little soft scuffing of cautiously shifted feet on
the carpet, followed the question. Ollie shrank back, as if
wincing from pain.

" Mrs. Chase was upstairs in her room," answered Joe.

The weight of a thousand centuries lifted from Ollie's
body. Her vision cleared. Her breath came back in
measured flow to her lips, moist and refreshing.

He had not told. He was standing between her and the
sharp tongues of those waiting people, already licking
hungrily in their awakened suspicion, ready to sear her fair
name like flames. But there was no gratitude in her heart
that moment, no quick lifting of thankfulness nor under
standing of the great peril which Joe had assumed for her.
There was only relief, blessed, easing, cool relief. He had not
told.

But the coroner was a persistent man. He was making
more than an investigation out of it ; he was fairly turning
it into a trial, with Joe as the defendant. The people were
ready to see that, and appreciate his attempts to uncover
the dark motive that lay behind this deed, of which they were
convinced, almost to a man, that Joe was guilty.

" Was Isom jealous of you? " asked the coroner, beginning
the assault on Joe's reserve suddenly again when it seemed
that he was through. For the first time during the inquiry
Joe's voice was unsteady when he replied.

" He had no cause to be, and you've got no right to ask
me that, either, sir ! " he said.

144 The liondbo?/

" Shame on YOU, shame on you ! " said Mrs. Newbolt, lean
ing toward the coroner, shaking her head reprovingly.

"I've got the right to ask you anything that I sec fit and
proper, young man," the coroner rebuked him sternly.

"Well, maybe you have," granted Joe, drawing himself
straight in the chair.

"Did Isom Chase ever find you alone with his wife?'' the
coroner asked.

" \o\v you look here, sir, if you'll ask me questions that a
gentleman ought to ask, I'll answer you like a gentleman,
but I'll never answer such questions as that!"

There was a certain polite deference in Joe's voice, which
he felt that he owed, perhaps, to the office that the man
represented, but there was a firmness above it all that was
unmistakable.

" You refuse to answer any more questions, then?" said the
coroner slowly, and with a significance that was almost
sinister.

"I'll answer anv proper questions you care to ask me,"
answered Joe.

''Very well, then. You say that you and Isom quarreled
last night?"

" Yes, sir; we had a little spat."

"A little spat," repeated the coroner, looking around the
room as if to ask the people on whose votes he depended for
reelection what they thought of a "little spat" which ended
in a man's death. There was a sort of broad humor about
it which appealed to the blunt rural sense. A grin ran over
their faces like a spreading wavelet on a pool. "Well now.
what was the beginning of that 'little spat '? "

"Oh, what's that got to do with it?" asked Joe im
patiently. "You asked me that before."

" And I'm asking you again. What was that quarrel
over ? "

Will He Tell? 145

" None of your business ! " said Joe hotly, caring nothing
for consequences.

u Then you refuse to answer, and persist in your refusal?"

" Well, we don't seem to get on very well," said Joe.

" Xo, we don't," the coroner agreed snappishly. " Stand
down; that will be all."

The listening people shifted and relaxed, leaned and whis
pered, turning quick eyes upon Joe, studying him with furtive
wonder, as if they had discovered in him some fearful and
hideous thing, which he, moving among them all his life,
had kept concealed until that day.

Ollie followed him in the witness-chair. She related her
story, framed on the cue that she had taken from Greening's
testimony and Joe's substantiation of it, in low, trembling
voice, and with eyes downcast. She knew nothing about the
tragedy until Sol called up to her, she said, and then she
was in ignorance of what had happened. Mrs. Greening
had told her when she came that Isom was killed.

Ollie was asked about the book-agent boarder, as Greening
had been asked. Morgan had left on the morning of the
fateful day, she said, having finished his work in that part
of the country. She and Joe were alone in the house that
nig] it.

The coroner spared her, no matter how far his sharp
suspicions flashed into the obscurity of the relations between
herself and the young bondman. The people, especially the
women, approved his leniency with nods. Her testimony
concluded the inquiry, and the coroner addressed the jury.

'" Gentlemen," lie said, " you will take into consideration
the evidence vou have heard, and determine, if possible, the
manner in which Isom Chase came to his death, and fix the
responsibility for the same. It is within your power to
recommend that any person believed by you to be directly or
indirectly responsible for his death, be held to the grand

14<> The Bondboy

jury for further investigation. Gentlemen, you will now
view the body."

Alive, Isom Chase had walked in the secret derision and
contempt of his neighbors, despised for his parsimony, ridi
culed for his manner of life. Dead, lie had become an object
of awe which they approached softlv and with fear.

Isom lay upon his own cellar door, taken down from its
hinges to make him a couch. It stood over against the
kitchen wall, a chair supporting it at either end, and Isom
stretched upon it covered over with a sheet. The coroner
drew back the covering, revealing the face of the dead, and
the jurymen, hats in hand, looked over each other's shoulders
and then backed away.

For Isom was no handsomer as a corpse than he had been
as a living, striving man. The hard, worn iron of his frame
was there, like an old plowshare, useless now, no matter what
furrows it had turned in its dav. The harsh speech was
gone out of his crabbed lips, but the scowl which delinquent
debtors feared stood fro/en upon his brow. lie had died with
gold above his heart, as he had lived with the thought of
that bright metal crowding every human sentiment out of
it, and the mvsterv of those glittering pieces under his dead
hand was unexplained.

Somebody, it appeared, had sinned against old Isom Chase
at the end, and Joe Xewbolt knew who that person was.
Here he had stood before them all and lifted up a wall of
stubborn silence to shield the guilty head, and there was no
doubt that it was his own.

That also was the opinion of the coroner's jury, which
walked out from its deliberations in the kitchen in a little
while and gave as its verdict that Isom Chase had come to
his death by a gunshot wound, inflicted at the hands of
Joseph Xewbolt. The jury recommended that the accused
be held to the grand jurv, for indictment or dismissal.

Will He Tell? 147

Mrs. Newbolt did not understand fully what was going-
forward, but she gathered that the verdict of the neighbors
was unfriendly to Joe. She sat looking from the coroner
to Joe, from Joe to the jurors, lined up with backs against
the wall, as solemn and nervous as if waiting for a firing
squad to appear and take aim at their patriotic breasts. She
stood up in her bewilderment, and looked with puzzled, dazed
expression around the room.

"Joe didn't do it, if that's what you mean," said she.

"Madam — " began the coroner severely.

" Yes, you little whiffet," she burst out sharply, " you're
the one that put 'em up to do it! Joe didn't do it, I tell
you, and you men know that as well as I do. Every one of
you has knowed him all his life ! "

" Madam, I must ask you not to interrupt the proceed
ings," said the coroner.

" Order in the court ! " commanded the constable in his
deepest official voice.

" Oh, shut your fool mouth, Bill Frost ! " said Mrs. New-
bolt scornfully.

" Never mind, Mother," counseled Joe. " I'll be all right.
They have to do what they're doing, I suppose."

" Yes, they're doin' what that little snip-snapper with them
colored whiskers tells 'em to do ! " said she.

Solemn as the occasion was, a grin went round at the bald
reference to a plainer fact. Even the dullest there had seen
the grayish-red at the roots of the coroner's beard. The
coroner grew very red of face, and gave some orders to his
stenographer, who wrote them down. lie thanked the jurors
and dismissed them. Bill Frost began to prepare for the
journey to Shelby ville to turn Joe over to the sheriff.

The first, and most important, thing in the list of pre
liminaries for the journey, was the proper adjustment of
Bill's mustache. Bill reached it up with a turn of the fore-

148 The Bondboy

finder, vising the hack of it, which was rough, like a corn-cob.
AVlicn he hatl got the ends elevated at a valiant angle, his hat
firmly settled upon his head, and his suspenders tightened
two inches, he touched Joe's shoulder.

"Come on!" he ordered as gruffly and formally as he
could draw his edged voice.

Joe stood, and Hill put his hand on his arm to pilot him,
in all officiousness, out of the room. Mrs. Xewbolt stepped
in front of them as they approached.

'"Joe!" she cried appealingly.

" That's all right, Mother,*' he comforted her, "everything
will be cleared up and settled in a day or two. You go on
home now. Mother, and look after things till I come."

"Step out of the way, step out of the way!" said Hill
with spreading impatience.

Mrs. Xewbolt looked at the blustering official pityingly.

'k Hill Frost, you ain't got as much sense as you was born
with!" said she. She patted Joe's shoulder, which was as
near an approach to tenderness as he ever remembered her
to make.

Constable Frost fell into consultation with his adjutant,
Sol Greening, as soon as he cleared the room with the
prisoner. They discussed gravely in the prisoner's hearing,
for Hill kept his hand on Joe's arm all the time, the advisa
bility of tying him securely with a rope before starting on
the journey to jail.

Joe grew indignant over this base proposal. He declared
that if Hill was afraid of him he would go alone to the
county-seat and give himself up to the sheriff if they would
set him free. Hill was a little assured by his prisoner's evi
dent sincerity.

Another consultation brought them to the agreement that
the best they could do, in the absence of handcuffs, was to
hitch up to Isom's buggy and make the prisoner drive. With

Will He Tell? 149

hands employed on the lines, he could be watched narrowly
by Bill who was to take Sol's old navy six along in his
mighty hand.

Mrs. Newbolt viewed the officious constable's preparations
for the journey with many expressions of anger and disdain.

"Just look at that old fool, Bill Frost, with that re
volver ! " said she, turning to the neighbors, who stood
silently watching. "Just as if Joe would hurt anybody, or
try to run away ! "

Sympathy seemed to be lacking in the crowd. Everybody
was against Joe, that was attested by the glum faces and
silence which met her on every hand. She was amazed at
their stupidity. There they stood, people who had seen
Joe grow up, people who knew that a Newbolt would give
his last cent and go hungry to meet an obligation ; that he
would wear rags to pay his debts, as Peter had done, as
Joe was doing after him ; that he would work and strive
night and day to keep fair his honorable name, and to pre
serve the honest record of the family clear and clean.

They all knew that, and they knew that a Newbolt never
lied, but they hunched their backs and turned away their
heads as if they thought a body was going to hit them when
she spoke. It disgusted her; she felt like she could turn
loose on some of them with their own records, which she
had from a generation back.

She approached the buggy as Joe took up the lines and
prepared to drive out of the gate.

" I don't see why they think you done it, son, it's so un
reasonable and unneighborly of them," said she.

" Neighborly ! " said Joe, with sudden bitterness in his
young voice. "What am I to them but 'the pore folks' boy'?
They didn't believe me, Mother, but when I get a chance to
stand up before Judge Maxwell over at Shelbyville, I'll be
talking to a gentleman. A gentleman will understand."

1.50 The Bondboy

That sounded like his father, she thought. It moved her
with a feeling of the pride which she had reflected feebly for
so many years.

" I hope so, son," said she. " If you're not back in a day
or two, I'll be over to Shelbyville."

"Drive on, drive on!" ordered Bill, the old black revolver
in his hand.

The crowd was impressed by that weapon, knowing its
history, as everybody did. Greening's more or less honorable
father had carried it with him when he rode in the train of
Quantrell, the infamous bushwhacker. It was the old man's
boast to his dying day that he had exterminated a family of
father and five sons in the raid upon Lawrence with that
old weapon, without recharging it.

Joe drove through the open gate without a look behind
him. His face Avas pale, his heart was sick with the humilia
tion of that day. But he felt that it was only a temporary
cloud into which he had stepped, and that clearing would
come again in a little while. It was inconceivable to him
how anybody could be so foolish as to believe, or even sus
pect, that lie had murdered Isom Chase.

The assembled people having heard all there was to hear,
and seen all there was to see at the gate, began to straggle
back to the farmhouse to gossip, to gape, and exclaim. To
Greening and his family had fallen the office of comforting
the widow and arranging for the burial, and now Sol had
many offers to sit up with the corpse that night.

Mrs. Xewbolt stood at the roadside, looking after the con
veyance which was taking her son away to jail, until a bend
behind a tall hedge hid it from her eyes. She made no further
attempt to find sympathy or support among her neighbors,
who looked at her curiously as she stood there, and turned
away selfishly when she faced them.

Back over the road that she had hurried along that morn-

Will He Tell? 151

ing she trudged, slowly and without spirit, her feet like
stones. As she went, she tried to arrange the day's happen
ings in her mind. All was confusion there. The one plain
thing, the thing that persisted and obtruded, was that they
had arrested Joe on a charge that was at once hideous and
unjust.

Evening was falling when she reached the turn of the road
and looked ahead to her home. She had no heart for supper,
no heart to lift the latch of the kitchen door and enter there.
There was no desire in her heart but for her son, and no
comfort in the prospect of her oncoming night.

CHAPTER IX

THE SEALED ENVELOPE

IX THE light of Joe's reluctant testimony and his strange,
stubborn, and stift'-necked refusal to go into the matter
of the quarrel between himself and Isom ; the unexplained
mystery of the money which had been found in the burst bag
on Isom's breast ; and Joe's declaration that he had not seen
it until Isom fell : in the light of all this, the people of that
community believed the verdict of the coroner's jurv to be
just.

This refusal of Joe's to talk out and explain everything
was a display of the threadbare Xewbolt dignity, people said,
an exhibition of which they had not seen since old Peter's
death. Hut it looked more like bull-hcadedness to them.

"Don't the darned fool know he's pokin' his head under
the gallus?" they asked.

What was the trouble between him and Isom about? What
was he doin' there in the kitchen with the lamp lit that hour
of the night? Where did that there money come from, gentle
men? That's what I want you to tell me!

Those were the questions which were being asked, man to
man, group to group, and which nobody could answer, as
thev stood discussing it after Joe had been taken away to
jail. The coroner mingled with them, giving them the weight
of his experience.

"That Xewbolt's deeper than lie looks on the outside,
gentlemen," he said, shaking his serious whiskers. " There's
a lot more behind this case than we can see. Old Isom Chase
was murdered, and that murder was planned away ahead.
It's been a long time since I've seen anybody on the witness-

152

The Scaled Envelope 1.58

stand as shrewd and sharp as that Newbolt boy. He knew
just what to so say and just what to shut his jaws on. But
we'll fetch it out of him — or somebody else."

As men went home to take up their neglected tasks, they
talked it all over. They wrondered what Joe would have done
with that money if he had succeeded in getting away with it ;
whether he would have made it out of the country, or
whether the invincible Bill Frost, keen on his scent as a fox
hound, would have pursued him and brought him back.

They wondered how high they built the gallows to hang
a man, and discussed the probability of the event being public.
They speculated on the manner in which Joe would go to his
death, whether boldly, with his head up that way, or cringing
and afraid, his proud heart and spirit broken, and whether
he would confess at the end or carry his secret with him to
the grave. Then they branched off into discussions of the
pain of hanging, and wondered whether it was a " more
horribler " death than drowning or burning in a hay-stack,
or from eating pounded glass.

It was a great, moving, awakening sensation in the country
side, that taking off of Isom Chase by a mysterious midnight
shot. It pulled people up out of the drowse of a generation,
and set them talking as they had not talked in twenty years.
Their sluggish brains were heated by it, their sleeping hearts
quickened.

People were of the undivided opinion that Isom had caught
Joe robbing him, and that Joe had shot him in the fear of
punishment for the theft. Perhaps it is because chivalry is
such a rare quality among the business activities of this life,
that none of them believed he was shielding Isom's wife, and
that he was innocent of any wrong himself. They did not ap
prove the attempt of the coroner to drag her into it. The
shrewd insight of the little man cost him a good many votes
that day.

154 The llondboy

•Joe Newbolt could very well be a robber, tliev said, lOr
all his life had prepared him for a fall before the temptation
of money. He could very well be a robber, indeed, and tin i"
was no room for him to turn out anything nobler, for wasn't
he the pore folks' boy?

Ollie was almost as short in her realization of what Joe
bud done for her as those who knew nothing at all of his
motive of silence. In the relief of her escape from public
disclosure of her intrigue with Morgan, she enjoyed a luxuri
ous relaxation. It was like sleep after long watching.

She did not understand the peril in which Joe stood on her
nccount, nor consider that the future still held for both of
them a trial which would test Joe's strength as the corrosive
tooth of acid challenges the purity of gold. It was enough
for her that sunny afternoon, and sufficient to her shallow
soul, to know that she was safe. She lay warm and restful
in her bed while the neighbor women set the house to rights,
and the men moved Isom's body into the parlor to wait for
the coffin which Sol Greening had gone after to the county-
*eat.

Ollie watched the little warm white clouds against the blue
of the October sky, and thought of the fleecy soft things
which a mother loves to swaddle her baby in; she watched
the shadow of falling leaves upon the floor, blowing past her
window on the slant sunbeams.

She was safe !

Joe was accused, but she seemed to hold that a trivial
incident in an exciting day. It would pass; he would clear
himself, as he deserved to be cleared, and then, when Morgan
came back for her and carried her away into his world,
everything would be in tune.

Perhaps it was because she knew that Joe was innocent
that his accusation appeared so untenable and trivial to her.
At any rate, the lawyers over at Shelbyville — wasn't their

The Sealed Envelope 155

cunning known around the world — could get him off. If it
came to that, she would see that he had a good one, as good
as money could employ. Joe had stood by her ; she would
stand by Joe. That was the extent of her concern that after
noon.

It was pleasant to stretch there in peace, with no task
before her, no rude summons to arise and work. Isom would
call her no more at dawn ; his voice would be silent in that
house forever more. There was no regret in the thought,
no pang, no pain.

As one lives his life, so he must be pitied in death. Soft
deeds father soft memories. There never was but one man
who rose with the recollection of pleasant dreams from
pillowing his head upon a stone, and that man was under the
hand of God. Isom Chase had planted bitterness ; his mem
ory was gall.

She was safe, and she was free. She had come into her
expectations; the pre-nuptial dreams of enjoying Isom
Chase's wealth were suddenly at hand.

Together with the old rifle and Isom's blood-stained gar
ments, the coroner had taken away the little bag of gold, to
be used as evidence, he said. He had taken the money, just
as it was in the little sack, a smear of blood on it, after
counting it before witnesses and giving her a receipt for the
amount. Two thousand dollars ; one hundred pieces of
twenty dollars each. That was the tale of the contents of
the canvas bag which had lain grinning on Isom's pulseless
heart. It was not a great amount of money, considering
Isom's faculty for gaining and holding it. It was the gen
eral belief that he had ten, twenty, times that amount, be
sides his loans, hidden away, and the secret of his hiding-
place had gone out of the world with Isom.

Others said that he had put his money into lands, pointing
to the many farms which he owned and rented in the county.

156 The Bondboy

But be that as it might, there was Ollie, young and hand
some, well paid for her hard year as Isom's wife, free now,
and doubtless already willing at heart to make some young
man happy. Nobody blamed her for that.

It was well known that Isom had abused her, that her life
had been cheerless and lonely under his roof. Those who did
not know it from first-hand facts believed it on the general
notoriety of the man. Contact with Isom Chase had been
like sleeping on a corn-husk bed; there was no comfort in it,
no matter which way one turned.

Ollie, her eyes closed languidly, now languidly opened to
follow the track of the lamb-fleece clouds, her young body
feeling warm and pleasant, as if lately released from a sorely
cramped state; Ollie, with little fleeting dreams in her pretty,
shallow head, was believed by the women of the neighborhood
to be in the way of realizing on Isom's expectations of an
heir. It was a little fiction that had taken its beginning from
Sol Greening's early talk, and owing to that rumor the
coroner had been gentle with her beyond the inclination of
his heart.

The young widow smiled as she lay on her pillow and
thought of the little intimate touches of tenderness which
this baseless rumor had made her the beneficiary of at her
neighbor's hands. She was selfish enough to take advantage
of their mistaken kindnesses and to surrender to their vigor
ous elbows the work below stairs. That was her day of
freedom; it was her dawn of peace.

It was pleasant to have come through stress and hardship
to this restful eddy in the storm of life; to have faced peril
and disgrace and come away still clean in the eyes of mi n.
Ollie was content with things as they were, as the evening
shadows closed the door upon the events of that trying d.-'.y.

Quite different was the case of Sarah Xewbolt, once more
back in her poor shelter, nested in bramble and clambering

The Sealed Envelope 157

vine. She was dazed, the song was gone out of her heart.
She was bereaved, and her lips were moving in endless repe
tition of supplication to the Almighty for the safety and
restoration of her son.

What was this grim thing of which they had accused her
Joe? She could not yet get to the bottom of it, she could
not understand how men could be so warped and blind. Why,
Joe had told them how it happened, he had explained it as
clear as well water, but they didn't believe him. She went
out and sat on the porch to think it out, if possible, and
come to some way of helping Joe. There was not a friend
to turn to, not a counselor to lean upon.

She never had felt it lonely in the old place before, for
there was companionship even in the memory of her dead,
but this evening as she sat on the porch, the familiar objects
in the yard growing dim through the oncoming night, the
hollowness of desolation was there. Joe was in prison. The
neighbors had refused to believe the word of her boy. There
was nobody to help him but her. The hand of everybody
else was against him. She had delivered him into bondage
and brought this trouble to him, and now she must stir her
self to set him free.

" It's all my own doin's," said she in unsparing reproach.
" My chickens has come to roost."

After nightfall she went into the kitchen where she sat a
dreary while before her stove, leaning forward in her un
lovely, ruminating pose. Through the open draft of the
stove the red coals within it glowed, casting three little bars
of light upon the floor. Now and then a stick burned in
two and settled down, showering sparks through the grate.
These little flashes lit up her brown and somber face, and
discovered the slow tears upon her weathered cheeks. For a
long time she sat thus, then at last she lifted her head and
looked around the room. Her table stood as she had left

158 The Bondboy

it in the morning, no food had passed her lips since then.
But the frantic turmoil of the first hours after Joe had heen
led away to jail had quieted.

A plan of action had shaped itself in her mind. In the
morning she would go to Shelbyville and seek her husband's
old friend, Colonel Henry Price, to solicit his advice and
assistance. In a manner comforted by this resolution, she
prepared herself a pot of coffee and some food. After the
loneliest and most hopeless meal that she ever had eaten in
her life, she went to bed.

In the house of Isom Chase, where neighbors sat to watch
the night out beside the shrouded body, there was a waste
of oil in many lamps, such an illumination that it seemed a
wonder that old Isom did not rise up from his gory bed to
turn down the wicks and speak reproof. Everybody must
have a light. If an errand for the living or a service for the
dead called one from this room to that, there must be a light.
That was a place of tragic mystery, a place of violence and
death. If light had been lacking there on the deeds of Isom
Chase, on his hoardings and hidings away; on the hour of his
death and the mystery of it, then all this must be balanced
tonight by gleams in every window, beams through every
crevice; lamps here, lanterns there, candles in cupboards,
cellar, and nook.

Let there be light in the house of Isom Chase, and in the
sharp espionage of curious eyes, for dark days hang over it,
and the young widow who draws the pity of all because she
cannot weep.

No matter how hard a woman's life with a man has been,
when he dies she is expected to mourn. That was the standard
of fealty and respect in the neighborhood of Isom Chase, as
it is in more enlightened communities in other parts of the
world. A woman should weep for her man, no matter what
bruises on body his heavy hand may leave behind him, or

The Sealed Envelope 159

what scars in the heart which no storm of tears can wash
away. Custom has made hypocrites of the ladies in this
matter the wide world through. Let no man, therefore,
lying bloodless and repellent upon his cooling-board, gather
comfort to his cold heart when his widow's tears fall upon
his face. For she may be weeping more for what might have
been than was.

Isom Chase's widow could not weep at all. That was
what they said of her, and their pity was more tender, their
compassion more sweet. Dry grief, they said. And that is
grief like a covered fire, which smolders in the heart and
chars the foundations of life. She ought to be crying, to
clear her mind and purge herself of the dregs of sorrow,
which would settle and corrode unless flushed out by tears ;
she ought to get rid of it at once, like any other widow,
and settle down to the enjoyment of all the property.

The women around Ollie in her room tried to provoke her
tears by reference to Isom's good qualities, his widely known
honesty, his ceaseless striving to lay up property which he
knew he couldn't take with him, which he realized that his
young wife would live long years after him to enjoy. They
glozed his faults and made virtues out of his close-grained
traits ; they praised and lamented, with sighs and mournful
words, but Isom's widow could not weep.

Ollie wished they would go away and let her sleep. She
longed for them to put out the lamps and let the moonlight
come in through the window and whiten on the floor, and
bring her soft thoughts of Morgan. She chafed under their
chatter, and despised them for their shallow pretense. There
was not one of them who had respected Isom in life, but
now they sat there, a solemn conclave, great-breasted suck-
lers of the sons of men, and insisted that she, his unloved,
his driven, abused and belabored wife, weep tears for his
going, for which, in her heart, she was glad.

160 The Bondboy

It was well that they could not see her face, turned into
the shadow, nestled against the pillow, moved now and then
as by the zephyr breath of a smile. At times she wanted to
laugh at their pretense and humbug. To prevent it breaking
out in unseemly sound she was obliged to bite the coverlet
and let the spasms of mirth waste themselves in her body
and limbs.

When the good women beheld these contractions they
looked at each other meaningly and shook dolefully wise heads.
Dry grief. Already it was laying deep hold on her, racking
her like ague. She would waste under the curse of it, and
follow Isom to the grave in a little while, if she could not soon
be moved to weep.

Ollie did not want to appear unneighborly nor unkind, but
as the night wore heavily on she at last requested them to
leave her.

"You are all so good and kind!" said she, sincere for the
moment, for there was no mistaking that they meant to be.
" But I think if you'd take the lamp out of the room I could
go to sleep. If I need you, I'll call."

"Now, that's just what you do, deary," said red-faced
Mrs. Greening, patting her head comfortingly.

The women retired to the spare bedroom where Joe had
slept the night before, and from there their low voices came to
Ollie through the open door. She got up and closed it gently,
and ran up the window-blind and opened the window-sash,
letting in the wind, standing there a little while drawing IHT
gown aside, for the touch of it on her hot breast. She remem
bered the day that Joe had seen her so, the churn-dasher in
her hand; the recollection of what was pictured in his face
provoked a smile.

There was a mist before the moon like a blowing veil,
presaging rain tomorrow, the day of the funeral. It was
well known in that part of the country that rain on a coffin

The Sealed Envelope 161

was a certain sign that another of that family would die
within a year. Ollie hoped that it would not rain. She was
not ready to die within a year, nor many years. Her desire
to live was large and deep. She had won the right, Isom
had compensated in part for the evil he had done her in
leaving behind him all that was necessary to make the journey
pleasant.

As she turned into her bed again and composed herself
for sleep, she thought of Joe, with a feeling of tenderness.
She recalled again what Isom had proudly told her of the
lad's blood and breeding, and she understood dimly now that
there was something extraordinary in Joe's manner of shield
ing her to his own disgrace and hurt. A common man would
not have done that, she knew.

She wondered if Morgan would have done it, if he had been
called upon, but the yea or the nay of it did not trouble her.
Morgan was secure in her heart without sacrifice.

Well, tomorrow they would bury Isom, and that would end
it. Joe would be set free then, she thought, the future
would be clear. So reasoning, she went to sleep in peace.

Ollie's habit of early rising during the past year of her
busy life made it impossible for her to sleep after daylight.
For a while after waking next morning she lay enjoying that
new phase of her enfranchisement. From that day forward
there would be no need of rising with the dawn. Time was her
own now; she could stretch like a lady who has servants to
bring and take away, until the sun came into her chamber,
if she choose.

Downstairs there were dim sounds of people moving about,
and the odors of breakfast were rising. Thinking that it
would be well, for the sake of appearances, to go down and
assist them, she got up and dressed.

She stopped before the glass to try her hair in a new
arrangement, it was such bright hair, she thought, for mourn-

162 The Bondboy

ing, but yet as somber as her heart, bringing it a little lower
on the brow, in a sweep from the point of parting. The
effect was somewhat frivolous for a season of mourning, and
she would have to pass through one, she sighed. After a
while, when she went out into Morgan's world of laughter
and chatter and fine things. She smiled, patting her lively
tresses back into their accustomed place.

Ollie was vain of her prettiness, as any woman is, only
in her case there was no soul beneath it to give it ballast.
Her beauty was pretty much surface comeliness, and it was
all there was of her, like a great singer who sometimes is
nothing but a voice.

Sol Greening was in the kitchen with his wife and his son's
wife and two of the more distant neighbor women who had
remained overnight. The other men who had watched with
Sol around Isom's bier had gone off to dig a grave for the
dead, after the neighborly custom there. As quick as her
thought, Ollie's eyes sought the spot where Isom's blood
had stood in the worn plank beside the table. The stain
was gone. She drew her breath with freedom, seeing it so.
yet wondering how they had done it, for she had heard all
her life that the stain of human blood upon a floor could
not be scoured away.

"We was just gcttin' a bite of breakfast together," said
Mrs. Greening, her red face shining, and brighter for its big,
friendly smile.

" I was afraid you might not be able to find everything,'"
explained Ollie, " and so I came down."

"Xo need for you to do that, bless your heart!" Mrs.
Greening said. " But we was just talkin' of callin' you. Sol,
he run across something last night that we thought you
might want to see as soon as you could."

Ollie looked from one to the other of them with a question
in her eves.

The Sealed Envelope 163

"Something — something of mine?" she asked.

Mrs. Greening nodded.

" Something Isom left. Fetch it to her, Sol."

Sol disappeared into the dread parlor where Isom lay, and
came back with a large envelope tied about with a blue string,
and sealed at the back with wax over the knotted cord.

"It's Isom's will," said Sol, giving it to Ollie. "When
we was makin' room to fetch in the coffin and lay Isom out
in it last night, we had to move the center table, and the
drawer fell out of it. This paper was in there along with
a bundle of old tax receipts. As soon as we seen what was on
it, we decided it orto be put in your hands as soon as you
woke up."

" I didn't know he had a will," said Ollie, turning the
envelope in her hands, not knowing what to make of it, or
what to do with it, at all.

" Read what's on the in-vellup," advised Sol, standing by
importantly, his hands on his hips, his big legs spread out.

Outside the sun was shining, tenderly yellow like a new
plant. Ollie marked it with a lifting of relief. There would
be no rain on the coffin. It was light enough to read the'
writing on the envelope where she stood, but she moved
over to the window, wondering on the wray.

What was a will for but to leave property, and what need
had Isom for making one?

It was an old envelope, its edges browned b}' time, and
the ink upon it was gray.

My last Will and Testament. ISOM CHASE.

N. B. — To be opened by John B. Little, in case he is living at the
time of my death. If he is not, then this is to be filed by the finder,
unopened, in the probate court.

That was the superscription in Isom's writing, correctly
spelled, correctly punctuated, after his precise way in all
business affairs.

164 The Bondboy

"Who is John B. Little?" asked Ollie, her heart seeming
to grow small, shrinking from some undefined dread.

" He's Judge Little, of the county court now," said Sol.
" I'll go over after him, if you say so."

"After hreakfast will do," said Ollie.

She put the envelope on the shelf beside the clock, as if it
did not concern her greatly. Yet, under her placid surface she
was deeply moved. What need had Isom for making a will?

" It saves a lot of lawin' and wastin' money on costs,"
said Sol, as if reading her mind and making answer to her
thought. " You'll have a right smart of property on your
hands to look after for a young girl like you."

Of course, to her. Who else was there for him to will his
property to? A right smart, indeed. Sol's words were
wise ; they quieted her sudden, sharp pain of fear.

Judge Little lived less than a mile away. Before nine
o'clock he was there, his black coat down to his knees, for he
was a short man and bowed of the legs, his long ends of hair
combed over his bald crown.

The judge was at that state of shrinkage when the veins
can be counted in the hands of a thin man of his kind. His
smoothly shaved face was purple from congestion, the bald
place on his small head was red. He was a man who walked
about as if wrapped in meditation, and on him rested ;i
notarial air. His arms were almost as long as his legs, his
hands were extremely large, lending the impression that they
had belonged originally to another and larger man, and that
Judge Little must have become possessed of them by sonic
process of delinquency against a debtor. As he walked
along his way those immense hands hovered near the skirts
of his long coat, the fingers bent, as if to lay hold of that
impressive garment and part it. This, together with the
judge's meditative appearance, lent him the aspect of always
being on the point of sitting down.

The Sealed Envelope 165

" Well, well," said he, sliding his spectacles down his nose
to get the reading focus, advancing the sealed envelope, draw
ing it away again, " so Isom left a will? Not surprising, not
surprising. Isom was a careful man, a man of business. I
suppose we might as well proceed to open the document? "

The judge was sitting with his thin legs crossed. They
hung as close and limp as empty trousers. Around the room
he roved his eyes, red, watery, plagued by dust and wind.
Greening was there, and his wife. The daughter-in-law had
gone home to get ready for the funeral. The other two
neighbor women reposed easily on the kitchen chairs, arms
tightly folded, backs against the wall.

" You, Mrs. Chase, being the only living person who is
likely to have an interest in the will as legatee, are fully aware
of the circumstances under which it was found, and so forth
and so forth?"

Ollie nodded. There was something in her throat, dry
and impeding. She felt that she could not speak.

Judge Little took the envelope by the end, holding it up
to the light. He took out his jack-knife and cut the cord.

It was a thin paper that he drew forth, and with little
writing on it. Soon Judge Little had made himself master
of its contents, with an Um-m-m, as he started, and with an
A-li-h! when he concluded, and a sucking-in of his thin cheeks.

He looked around again, a new brightness in his eyes. But
he said nothing. He merely handed the paper to Ollie.

"Read it out loud," she requested, giving it back.

Judge Little fiddled with his glasses again. Then lie
adjusted the paper before his eyes like a target, and read:

I hereby will and bequeath to my beloved son, Isom Walker Chase,
all of my property, personal and real; and I hereby appoint my friend,
John B. Little, administrator of my estate, to serve without bond, until
my son shall attain his majority, in case that I should die before that
time. This is my last will, and I am in sound mind and bodily health.

That was all.

CHAPTER X

LET HIM HANG

THE will was duly signed and witnessed, and bore a
notarial seal. It was dated in the hand of the testator,
in addition to the acknowledgment of the notary, nil regu
lar, and unquestionably done.

"His son!" said Sol, amazed, looking around with big
eyes. " Why, Isom he never had no son ! "

"Do we know that?" asked Judge Little, as if to raise the
question of reasonable doubt.

Son or no son, until that point should be determined he
would have the administration of the estate, with large and
comfortable fees.

" Well, I've lived right there acrost the road from him all
my life, and all of his, too; and I reckon I'd purty near know
if anybody knowed ! " declared Sol. "I went to school with
Isom, I was one of the little fellers when he was a big one,
and I was at his weddin'. Mv wife she laid out his first
wife, and I dug her grave. She never had no children,
judge; you know that as well as anybody."

Judge Little coughed dryly, thoughtfully, his customary
aspect of deep meditation more impressive than ever.

" Sometimes the people we believe we know best turn out to
be the ones we know least," said he. " Maybe we knew only
one side of Isom's life. Every man has his secrets."

"You mean to say there was another woman somewhcres?"
asked Sol, taking the scent avidly.

The women against the wall joined Mrs. Greening in a
rirtuous, scandalized groan. They looked pityingly at Ollie,
sitting straight and white in her chair. She did not appeaf

166

Let Him Hang 167

to see them ; she was looking at Judge Little with fixed,
frightened stare.

" That is not for me to say," answered the judge ; and his
manner of saying it seemed to convey the hint that he could
throw light on Isom's past if he should unseal his lips.

Ollie took it to be that way. She recalled the words of the
will, "My friend, John B. Little." Isom had never spoken
in her hearing that way of any man. Perhaps there was
some bond between the two men, reaching back to the escap
ades of youth, and maj'be Judge Little had the rusty old
key to some past romance in Isom's life.

"Laws of mercy ! " said Mrs. Greening, freeing a sigh of
indignation which surely must have burst her if it had been
repressed.

" This document is dated almost thirty years ago," said the
judge. "It is possible that Isom left a later will. We must
make a search of the premises to determine that."

" In sixty-seven he wrote it," said Sol, " and that was the
year he was married. The certificate's hangin' in there on
the wall. Before that, Isom he went off to St. Louis to
business college a year or two and got all of his learnin' and
smart ways. I might 'a' went, too, just as well as not.
Always wisht I had."

" Very true, very true," nodded Judge Little, as if to say :
" You're on the trail of his iniquities now, Sol."

Sol's mouth gaped like an old-fashioned corn-planter as he
looked from the judge to Mrs. Greening, from Mrs. Greening
to Ollie. Sol believed the true light of the situation had
reached his brain.

"Walker — Isom Walker Chase! No Walkers around in
this part of the country to name a boy after — never was."

" His mother was a Walker, from Ellinoi, dunce ! "
corrected his wife.

" Oh ! " said Sol, his scandalous case collapsing about

168 The Eondboy

him as quickly as it had puffed up. " I forgot about her."

" Don't you worry about that will, honey," advised Mrs.
Greening, going to Ollie and putting her large freckled arm
around the young woman's shoulders ; " for it won't amount
to shucks ! Isom never had a son, and even if he did by some
woman he wasn't married to, how's he goin' to prove he's
the feller?"

Nobody attempted to answer her, and Mrs. Greening ac
cepted that as proof that her argument was indubitable.

" It — can't — be — true ! " said Ollie.

" Well, it gits the best of me ! " sighed Greening, shaking
his uncombed head. " Isom he was too much of a business
man to go and try to play off a joke like that on anybody."

" After the funeral I would advise a thorough search among
Isom's papers in the chance of finding another and later will
than this," said Judge Little. "And in the meantime, as a
legal precaution, merely as a legal precaution and formality,
Mrs. Chase "

The judge stopped, looking at Ollie from beneath the rims
of his specs, as if waiting for her permission to proceed.
Ollie, understanding nothing at all of what was in his mind,
but feeling that it was required of her, nodded. That seemed
the signal for which he waited. lie proceeded:

"As a legal formality, Mrs. Chase, I will proceed to file
this document for probate this afternoon."

Judge Little put it in his pocket, reaching down into that
deep depository until his long arm was engulfed to the elbow.
That pocket must have run down to the hem of his garment,
like the oil on Aaron's beard.

Ollie got up. Mrs. Greening hastened to her to offer the
support of her motherly arm.

" I think I'll go upstairs," said the young widow.

"Yes, you do," counseled Mrs. Greening. '"They'll be
along with the wagons purtv soon, and we'll have to git

Let Him Hang 169

ready to go. I think they must have the grave done by now."

The women watched Ollie as she went uncertainly to the
stairs and faltered as she climbed upward, shaking their hea9s
forebodingly. Sol and Judge Little went outside together
and stood talking by the door.

" Ain't it terrible ! " said one woman.

" Scan'lous ! " agreed the other.

Mrs. Greening shook her fist toward the parlor.

" Old sneaky, slinkin', miserly Isom ! " she denounced. " I
always felt that he was the kind of a man to do a trick like
that. Shootin' was too good for him — he orto been hung!"

In her room upstairs Ollie, while entirely unaware of Mrs.
Greening's vehement arraignment of Isom, bitterly indorsed
it in her heart. She sat on her tossed bed, the sickness of
disappointment heavy over her. An hour ago wealth was in
her hand, ease was before her, and the future was secure.
Now all was torn down and scattered by an old yellow paper
which prying, curious, meddlesome old Sol Greening had
found. She bent her head upon her hand ; tears trickled
between her fingers.

Perhaps Isom had a son, unknown to anybody there.
There was that period out of his life when he was at business
college in St. Louis. No one knew what had taken place in
that time. Perhaps he had a son. If so, they would oust
her, turn her out as poor as she came, with the memory
of that hard }Tear of servitude in her heart and nothing to
compensate for it, not even a tender recollection. How
much better if Joe had not come between her and Curtis
Morgan that night — what night, how long ago was it now?
— how much kinder and happier for her indeed?

With the thought of what Joe had caused of wreckage in
her life by his meddling, her resentment rose against him.
But for him, slow-mouthed, cold-hearted lout, she would have
been safe and happy with Morgan that hour. Old Isom

170 The Bondboy

would have been living still, going about his sordid ways as
before she came, and the need of his money would have been
removed out of her life forever.

Joe was at the bottom of all this — spying, prying, med
dling Joe. Let him suffer for it now, said she. If he had
kept out of things which he did not understand, the fool !
Xow let him suffer! Let him hang, if he must hang, as she
had heard the women say last night he should. No act of
hers, no word —

" The wagons is coming, honey," said Mrs. Greening at her
door. " We must git ready to go to the graveyard now."

CHAPTER XI

PETER'S sox

MINT grew under the peach-trees in Colonel Henry
Price's garden, purple-stemmed mint, with dark-green,
tender leaves. It was not the equal of the mint, so the
colonel contended with provincial loyalty, which grew back in
Kentucky along the clear, cool mountain streams. But,
picked early in the morning with the dew on it, and then
placed bouquet-wise in a bowl of fresh well-water,, to stand
thus until needed, it made a very competent substitute for
the Kentucky herb.

In that cool autumn weather mint was at its best, and
Colonel Price lamented, as he gathered it that morning, elbow-
deep in its dewy fragrance, that the need of it was passing
with the last blaze of October days.

Yet it was comforting to consider how well-balanced the
seasons and men's appetites were. With the passing of the
season for mint, the desire for it left the palate. Frosty
mornings called for the comfort of hot toddy, wintry blasts
for frothing egg-nog in the cup. Man thirsted and nature
satisfied ; the economy of the world was thus balanced and
all was well. So reasoned Colonel Price comfortably, after
his way.

Colonel Price straightened up from his mint-picking with
dew on his arm and a flush of gathered blood in his cheeks
above his beard. He looked the philosopher and humanitarian
that he was that morning, his breast-length white beard blow
ing, his long and thick white hair brushed back in a rising
wave from his broad forehead. He was a tall and spare
man, slender of hand, small of foot, with the crinkles of past

171

172 The Eondboy

laughter about his eyes, and in his face benevolence. One
would have named him a poet at first look, and argued for
the contention on further acquaintance.

But Colonel Price was not a poet, except at heart, anv
more than he was a soldier, save in name. lie never had trod
the bloody fields of war, but had won his dignified and honor
able title in the quiet ways of peace. Colonel Price was
nothing less than an artist, who painted many things because
they brought him money, and one thing because he loved it
and could do it well.

He painted prize-winning heifers and horses; portraits
from the faces of men as nature had made them, with more or
less fidelity, and from faded photographs and treasured
daguerreotypes of davs before and during the war, with
whatever embellishments their owners required. He painted
plates of apples which had taken prizes at the county fair,
and royal pumpkins and kingly swine which had won like
high distinctions. But the one thing he painted because he
loved it, and could do it better than anybody else, was
corn.

At corn Colonel Price stood alone. He painted it in
bunches hanging on barn doors, and in disordered heaps in
the husk, a gleam of the grain showing here and there; and
lie painted it shelled from the cob. Xo matter where or how
lie painted it, his corn always was ripe and seasoned, like
himself, and always so true to nature, color, form, crinkle,
wrinkle, and guttered heart, that farmers stood before it
marveling.

Colonel Price's heifers might be — very frequently they
were- — bulky and bumpy and out of proportion, his horses
strangely foreshortened and hindlengthened ; but there never
was any fault to be found with his corn. Corn absolved
him of all his sins against animate and inanimate things
which had stood before his brush in his long life; corn

Peters Son 173

apotheosized him, corn lifted him to the throne and put the
laurel upon his old white locks.

The colonel had lived in Shelbyville for more than thirty
years, in the same stately house with its three Ionic pillars
reaching from ground to gable, supporting the two balconies
facing toward the east. A square away on one hand was the
court-house, a square away on the other the Presbyterian
church ; and around him were the homes of men whom he
had seen come there young, and ripen with him in that quiet
place. Above him on the hill stood the famous old college,
its maples and elms around it, and coming down from it on
each side of the broad street which led to its classic door.

Colonel Price turned his thoughts from mint to men as he
came across the dewy lawn, his gleanings in his hand, his
bare head gleaming in the morning sun. He had heard, the
evening before, of the arrest of Peter Newbolt's boy for the
murder of Isom Chase, and the news of it had come to him
with a disturbing shock, almost as poignant as if one of his
own blood had been accused.

The colonel knew the sad story of Peter marrying below
his estate away back there in Kentucky long ago. The New-
bolts were blue-grass people, entitled to mate with the best
in the land. Peter had debased his blood by marrying a
mountain girl. Colonel Price had held it always to Peter's
credit that he had been ashamed of his mesalliance, and had
plunged away into the woods of Missouri with his bride to
hide her from the eyes of his aristocratic family and friends.

Back in Kentucky the colonel's family and the Ncwbolt's
had been neighbors. A few years after Peter made his dash
across the Mississippi with his bride, and the journey on
horseback to his new home, young Price had followed, drawn
to Shelbyville by the fame of that place at a seat of culture
and knowledge, which even in that early day had spread afar.
The colonel — not having won his title then — came across

174 The Bo-Jidboy

the river with his easel under one arm and his pride under
the other, lie had kept both of them in honor all those
vears.

On the hopes and ambitions of those early days the colonel
had realized, in a small way, something in the measure of a
man who sets to work with the intention of making a million
and finds himself content at last to count his gains bv hun
dreds. He had taken up politics as a spice to the placid life
of art, and once had represented his district in the state
assembly, and four times had been elected county clerk. Then
he had retired on his honors, with a competence from his
early investments and an undivided ambition to paint corn.

Through all those years he had watched the struggles of
Peter Newbolt, who never seemed able to kick a foothold in
the steps of success, and he had seen him die at last, with his
unrealized schemes of life around him. And now Peter's boy
was in jail, charged with slaying old Isom Chase. Death had
its compensations, at the worst, reflected the colonel. It had
spared Peter this crowning disgrace.

That boy must be a throw-back, thought the colonel, to"
the ambuscading, feud-fighting men on his mother's side. The
Newbolts never had been accused of crime back in Kentucky.
There they had been the legislators, the judges, the gover
nors, and senators. Yes, thought the colonel, coming around
the corner of the house, lifting the fragrant bunch of mint
to his face and pausing a step while he drank its breath;
yes, the boy must be a throw-back. It wasn't in the New-
bolt blood to do a thing like that.

The colonel heard the front gate close sharply, drawn to
bv the stone weight which he had arranged for that purpose,
having in mind the guarding of his mint-bed from the incur
sions of dogs. He wondered who could be coming in so early,
and hastened forward to see. A woman was coming up the
walk toward the house.

Peters Son 175

She was tall, and soberly clad, and wore a little shawl over
her head, which she held at her chin with one hand. The
other hand she extended toward the colonel with a gesture of
self-depreciation and appeal as she hurried forward in long
strides.

" Colonel Price, Colonel Price, sir ! Can I speak to you
a minute?" she asked, her voice halting from the shortness
of breath.

" Certainly, ma'am ; I am at your command," said the
colonel.

" Colonel, you don't know me," said she, a little inflection
of disappointment in her tone.

She stood before him, and the little shawl over her hair
fell back to her shoulders. Her clothing was poor, her feet
were covered with dust. She cast her hand out again in
that little movement of appeal.

''Mrs. Xewbolt, Peter Newbolt's widow, upon my soul!"
exclaimed the colonel, shocked by his own slow recognition.
" I beg your pardon, madam. I didn't know you at first, it
has been so long since I saw you. But I was thinking of
you only the minute past."

u Oh, I'm in such trouble, Colonel Price ! " said she.

Colonel Price took her by the arm with tender friendliness.

" Come in and rest and refresh yourself," said he. " You
surely didn't Avalk over here ? "

" Yes, it's only a step," said she.

" Five or six miles, I should say," ventured the colonel.

*' Oh, no, only four. Have you heard about my boy
Joe?"

The colonel admitted that he had heard of his arrest.

" I've come over to ask your advice on what to do," said
she, " and I hope it won't bother you much, Colonel Price.
Joe and me we haven't got a friend in this world ! "

" I will consider it a duty and a pleasure to assist the boy

176 The Eondboy

in any way I can," said the colonel in perfunctory form.
"But first come in, have some breakfast, and then we'll talk
it over. I'll have to apologize for Miss Price. I'm afraid
she's abed yet," said he, opening the door, showing his visitor
into the parlor.

"I'm awful early," said Mrs. Newbolt hesitating at the
door. " It's shameful to come around disturbin' folks at this
hour. But when a body's in trouble, Colonel Price, time
seems long."

" It's the same with all of us," said he. " But Miss Price
will be down presently. I think I hear her now. Just step
in, ma'am."

She looked deprecatingly at her dusty shoes, standing there
in the parlor door, her skirts gathered back from them.

" If I could wipe some of this dust off," said she.

" Never mind that ; we are all made of it," the colonel said.
" I'll have the woman set you out some breakfast ; after
ward we'll talk about the boy."

" I thank you kindly, Colonel Price, but I already et, long
ago, what little I had stomach for," said she.

"Then if you will excuse me for a moment, madam?"
begged the colonel, seeing her seated stiffly in an upholstered
chair.

She half rose in acknowledgment of his bow, awkward and
embarrassed.

" You're excusable, sir," said she.

The colonel dashed away down the hall. She was only a
mountain woman, certainly, but she was a ladv by virtue of
having been a gentleman's wife. And she had caught him
without a coat !

Mrs. Xcwbolt sat stiffly in the parlor in surroundings which
were of the first magnitude of grandeur to her, with corn
pictures adorning the walls along with some of the colonel's
early transgressions in landscapes, and the portraits of

Peters Son 177

colonels in the family line who had gone before. That was
the kind of fixings Joe would like, thought she, nodding her
serious head; just the kind of things that Joe would enjoy
and understand, like a gentleman born to it.

" Well, he comes by it honest," said she aloud.

Colonel Price did not keep her waiting long. He came back
in a black coat that was quite as grand as Judge Little's,
and almost as long. That garment was the mark of fashion
and gentility in that part of the country in those days,
a style that has outlived many of the hearty old gentle
men who did it honor, and has descended even to this day with
their sons.

" My son's innocent of what they lay to him, Colonel
Price," said Mrs. Newbolt, with impressive dignity which
lifted her immediately in the colonel's regard.

Even an inferior woman could not associate with a superior
man that long without some of his gentility passing to her,
thought he. Colonel Price inclined his head gravely.

" Madam, Peter Newbolt's son never would commit a
crime, much less the crime of murder," he said, yet with more
sincerity in his words, perhaps, than lay in his heart.

" I only ask you to hold back your decision on him till you
can learn the truth," said she, unconsciously passing over
the colonel's declaration of confidence. " You don't remember
Joe maybe, for he was only a little shaver the last time you
stopped at our house when you was canvassin' for office.
That's been ten or 'leven — maybe more — years ago. Joe,
he's growed considerable since then."

" They do, they shoot up," said the colonel encouragingly.

" Yes ; but Joe he's nothing like me. He runs after his
father's side of the family, and he's a great big man in size
now, Colonel Price ; but he's as soft at heart as a dove."

So she talked on, telling him what she knew. When she had
finished laying the case of Joe before him, the colonel sat

178 The liondboy

thinking it over a bit, one hand in his beard, his head slightly'
bowed. Mrs. Ncwbolt watched him with anxious eyes. Pres
ently he looked at her and smiled. A great load of uncertainty
went up from her heart in a sigh.

"The first thing to do is to get him a lawyer, and the best
one we can nail," the colonel said.

She nodded, her face losing its worried tension.

"And the next tiling is for Joe to make a clean breast of
everything, holding back nothing that took place between him
and Isom that night."

" I'll tell him to do it," said she eagerly, " and I know he
will when I tell him you said he must."

" I'll go over to the sheriff's with you and see him," said
the colonel, avoiding the use of the word "jail" with a
delicacy that was his own.

"I'm beholden to you, Colonel Price, for all your great
kindness," said she.

There had been no delay in the matter of returning an
indictment against Joe. The grand jury was in session at
that time, opportunely for all concerned, and on the day that
Joe was taken to the county jail the case was laid before that
body by the prosecuting attorney. Before the grand jury
adjourned that day's business a true bill had been returned
against Joe Xewbolt, charging him with the murder of Isom
Chase.

There was in Shelbyvillc at that time a lawyer who had
mounted to his profession like a conqueror, over the heads of
his fellow-townsmen as stepping-stones. Perhaps it would be
nearer the mark to say that the chins of the men of Shelby
villc were the rungs in this ladder, for the lawyer had risen
from the barber's chair. lie had shaved and sheared his way
from that ancient trade, in which he had been respected as an
able hand, to the equally ancient profession, in which he was
cutting a rather ludicrous and lumbering figure.

Peter's Son 179

But he had that enterprise and lack of modesty which has
lately become the fashion among young lawyers — and is
spreading fast among the old ones, too — which carried him
into places and cases where simphr learning would have left
him without a brief. If a case did not come to Lawyer Ham
mer, Lawyer Hammer went to the case, laid hold of it by
force, and took possession of it as a kidnaper carries off a
child.

Hammer was a forerunner of the type of lawyer so common
in our centers of population today, such as one sees chasing
ambulances through the streets with a business-card in one
hand and a contract in the other ; such as arrives at the
scene of wreck, fire, and accident along with the undertaker,
and always ahead of the doctors and police.

Hammer had his nose in the wind the minute that Constable
Frost came into town with his prisoner. Before Joe had been
in jail an hour he had engaged himself to defend that unso
phisticated youngster, and had drawn from him an order on
Mrs. Newbolt for twenty-five dollars. He had demanded fifty
as his retainer, but Joe knew that his mother had but twenty-
five dollars saved out of his wages, and no more. He would
not budge a cent beyond that amount.

So, as Mrs. Newbolt and Colonel Price approached the
jail that morning, they beheld the sheriff and Lawyer Ham
mer coming down the steps of the county prison, and between
them Joe, like Eugene Aram, "with gyves upon his wrists."
The sheriff was taking Joe out to arraign him before the
circuit judge to plead to the indictment.

The court convened in that same building where all the
county's business was centered, and there was no necessity for
taking the prisoner out through one door and in at another,
for there was a passage from cells to court-rooms. But if
he had taken Joe that way, the sheriff' would have lost a
seldom-presented opportunity of showing himself on the

180 The Bondboy

streets in charge of a prisoner accused of homicide, to say
nothing of the grand opening for the use of his ancient wrist-
irons.

Lawyer Hammer also enjoyed his distinction in that short
march. He leaned over and whispered in his client's car, so
that there would be no doubt left in the public understanding
of his relations to the prisoner, and he took Joe's arm and
added his physical support to his legal as they descended the
steps.

Mrs. Xewbolt was painfully shocked by the sight of the
irons on Joe's wrists. She groaned as if they clamped the
flesh of her own.

" Oh, they didn't need to do that," she moaned.

Joe doubtless heard her, for he lifted his face and ran his
eyes through the crowd which had gathered. When he found
her he smiled. That was the first look Colonel Price ever
had taken into the lad's face.

"No," said he, answering her anguished outbreak with a
fervency that came from his heart, " there was no need of that
at all.""

They followed the sheriff and his charge into the court
room, where Mrs. Xewbolt introduced Colonel Price to her
son. While Joe and his mother sat in whispered conver
sation at the attorney's table, the colonel studied the youth's
countenance.

He had expected to meet a weak-faced, bony-necked, shock-
headed tvpe of gangling youngster such as ranged the
Kentucky hills in his own boyhood. At best he had hoped for
nothing more than a slow-headed, tobacco-chewing rascal with
dodging, animal eves. The colonel's pleasure, then, both as
an artist and an honest man, was great on beholding this
unusual face, strong and clear, as inflexible in its molded
lines of high purpose and valiant deeds as a carving in
Flemish oak.

Peter's Son 181

Here was the Peter Newbolt of long ago, remodeled in a
stronger cast, with more nobility in his brow, more promise
in his long, bony jaw. Here was no boy at all, but a man,
full-founded and rugged, and as honest as daylight, the
colonel knew.

Colonel Price was prepared to believe whatever that young
fellow might say, and to maintain it before the world. He
was at once troubled to see Hammer mixed up in the case,
for he detested Hammer as a plebeian smelling of grease, who
had shouldered his unwelcome person into a company of his
betters, which he could neither dignify nor grace.

The proceedings in court were brief. Joe stood, upon the
reading of the long, rambling information by the prosecut
ing attorney, and entered a calm and dignified plea of not
guilty. He was held without bond for trial two weeks from
that day.

In the sheriff's office Mrs. Newbolt and the colonel sat with
Joe, his wrists free from the humiliating irons, and talked
the situation over. Hammer was waiting on the outside.
Colonel Price having waved him away, not considering for a
moment the lowering of himself to include Hammer in the
conference.

The colonel found that he could not fall into an easy,
advisory attitude with Joe. He could not even suggest what
he had so strongly recommended to Mrs. Newbolt before
meeting her son — that he make a clean breast of all that took
place between himself and Isom Chase before the tragedy.
Colonel Price felt that he would be taking an offensive and
unwarranted liberty in offering any advice at all on that head.
Whatever his reasons for concealment and silence were, the
colonel told himself, the young man would be found in the end
justified; or if there was a revelation to be made, then he1
would make it at the proper time without being pressed. Of
that the colonel felt sure. A gentleman could be trusted.

182 The Eondboy

But there was another matter upon which the colonel had
no scruples of silence, and that was the subject of the attor
ney upon whom Joe had settled to conduct his affairs.

"That man Hammer is not, to say the least, the very best
lawyer in Shelbyvillc," said he.

"No, I don't suppose he is," allowed Joe.

" Now, I believe in you, Joe. as strong as any man can
believe in another "

" Thank you, sir," said Joe, lifting his solemn eyes to the
colonel's face. The colonel nodded his acknowledgment.

" But, no matter how innocent you are, you've got to stand
trial on this outrageous charge, and the county attorney
he's a hard and unsparing man. You'll need brains on your
side as well as innocence, for innocence alone seldom gets a
man off. And I'm sorry to tell you, son, that Jeff Hammer
hasn't got the brains you'll need in your lawvcr. He never
did have 'cm, and he never will have 'em — never in this mor
tal world!"

" I thought he seemed kind of sharp," said Joe, coloring
a little at the colonel's implied charge that he had been taken
in.

"He is sharp," admitted the colonel, "but that's all there
is to him. He can wiggle and squirm like a snake; but he's
got no dignity, and no learnin', and what he don't know about
law would make a book bigger than the biggest dictionary
you ever saw."

"Land's sake!" said Mrs. Ncwbolt, lifting up her hands
despairingly.

" Oh, I guess he'll do, Colonel Price," said Joe.

" My advice would be to turn him out and put somebody
else in his place, one of the old, respectable heads of the
profession here, like Judge Burns."

" I wouldn't like to do that, colonel," said Joe.

" Well, we'll see how he behaves," the colonel yielded, seeing

Peters Son 183

that Joe felt in honor bound to Hammer, now that he had
engaged him. "We can put somebody else in if he goes
to cuttin' up too many didoes and capers."

Joe agreed that they could, and gave his mother a great
deal of comfort and assurance by his cheerful way of facing
what lay ahead of him. He told her not to worry on his
account, and not to come too often and wear herself out
in the long walk.

"Look after the chickens and things, Mother," said he,
" and I'll be out of here in two weeks to help you along.
There's ten dollars coming to you from Isom's ; you collect
that and buy yourself some things."

He told her of the order that he had given Hammer for
the retaining fee, and asked her to take it up.

"I'll make it up to you, Mother, when I get this thing
settled and can go to work again," said he.

Tears came into her eyes, but no trace of emotion was to
be marked by any change in her immobile face.

" Lord bless you, son, it all belongs to you ! " she said.

"Do you care about reading?" the colonel inquired,
scarcely supposing that he did, considering the chances which
had been his for development in that way.

Mrs. Newbolt answered for Joe, who was slow and deliber
ative of speech, and always stopped to weigh his answer to
a question, no matter how obvious the reply must be.

" Oh, Colonel Price, if you could see him ! " said she proudly.
"Before he was ten years old he'd read the Cottage Encyclo-
pedy and the Imitation and the Bible — from back to back! "

"Well, I'm glad to hear you're of a studious mind," said
the colonel.

As often as Joe had heard his mother boast of his achieve
ments with those three notable books, he had not yet grown
hardened to it. It always gave him a feeling of foolishness,
and drowned him in blushes. Now it required some time for

184 Tlie Bondboy

him to disentangle himself, but presently he looked at the
colonel with a queer smile, as he said:

" Mother always tells that on me."

" It's nothing to be ashamed of," comforted the colonel,
marking his confusion.

" And all the books he's borrowed since then ! " said she,
conveying a sense of magnitude by the stress of her expres
sion. "He strained his eyes so when he was seventeen readin'
Shuckspur's writings that the teacher let him have I thought
he'd have to put on specs."

" My daughter and I have a considerable number of books,"
said the colonel, beginning to feel about for a bit more ele
gance in his method of expression, as a thing due from one
man of culture to another, " and if you will express your
desires I'm sure we shall be glad to supply you if the scope
of our library permits."

Joe thanked him for the offer, that strange little smile
coming over his face again.

" It wouldn't take much of a library, Colonel Price, to have
a great many books in it that I've never read," said he. " I
haven't been easy enough in my mind since this thing came up
to think about reading — I've got a book in niv pocket that
I'd forgotten all about until you mentioned books." He lifted
the skirt of his short coat, his pocket bulging from the volume
wedged into it. "I'll have a job getting it out, too," said he.

"'It don't seem to be a very heavy volume," smiled the
colonel. "What work is it?"

" It's the Book," said Joe.

Colonel Price laid his hand on the lad's shoulder and looked
him straight in the face.

"Then you've got by you the sum and substance of all
knowledge, and the beginning and the end of all philosophy,"
said he. " With that work in your hand you need no other,
for it's the father of all books."

Peters Son 185

" I've thought that way about it myself sometimes," said
Joe, as easy and confident in his manner with the colonel,
who represented a world to which he was a stranger from
actual contact, as a good swimmer in water beyond his depth.

" But if you happen to be coming over this way in a day
or two you might stop in if it wouldn't trouble you, and I
could name over to you a few books that I've been wanting
to read for a long time."

" I intend to lighten your brief period of confinement as
much as it is in my power to do," declared the colonel, " and
I can speak for my daughter when I say that she will share
my anxiety to make you as comfortable as human hands can
make you in this place, Joe. We'll come over and cheer you
every little while."

Mrs. Newbolt had sat by, like one who had been left behind
at a way-station by an express-train, while the colonel and
Joe had talked. The}7 had gone beyond her limited powers ;
there was nothing for her to do but wait for them to come
back. Now the colonel had reached her point of contact
again.

" You'll be rewarded for your kindness to the widow's son,"
said she, nodding her head earnestly, tears shining in her eyes.

When he was leaving, Colonel Price felt that he must make
one more effort to induce Joe to discharge Hammer and put
his case into the hands of a more competent man. Joe was
firm in his determination to give Hammer a chance. He was
a little sensitive on the matter under the rind, the colonel
could see.

" If I was to hire the best lawyer I could find, Colonel
Price, people would say then that I was guilty, sure enough,"
said Joe. " They'd say I was depending more on the lawyer'
than myself to come clear. Well, colonel, you know that
isn't the case."

That seemed to settle it, at least for the present. The

18G The Bondboi/

colonel summoned the sheriff, who took Joe to his cell. As
the colonel and Mrs. Xewbolt passed out, Attorney Hammer
appeared, presenting his order for the money.

Mrs. Xewbolt carried her savings with her. When she had
paid Hammer she had sixty cents left in her calloused palm.

"That's egg money," said she, tying it in the corner of
her handkerchief. "Oh, colonel, I forgot to ask the sheriff,
but do you reckon they'll give- my Joe enough to eat?"

"I'll see to that," said Hammer officiously.

Hammer was a large, soft man in an alpaca-coat and white
shirt without a collar. His hair was very black and exceed
ingly greasy, and brushed down upon his skull until it
glittered, catching every ray of light in his vicinity like a
bucket of oil. lie walked in long strides, with a sliding
motion of the feet, and carried his hands with the palms
turned outward, as if ready instantly to close upon any case,
fee, or emolument which came in passing contact with him,
even though it might be on its way to somebody else.

Mrs. Xewbolt was not unfavorably impressed with him, for*
he seemed very officious and altogether domineering in the
presence of the sheriff, but her opinion may have been influ
enced perhaps by Joe's determination to have him whether or
no. She thanked him for his promise of good offices in Joe's
behalf, and he took her arm and impeded her greatly in her
progress down the steps.

After Mrs. Xewbolt had taken some refreshment in the
colonel's house, she prepared to return home.

"If I had a hoss, madam," said the colonel, "I'd hitch up
and carry you home. But I don't own a hoss, and I haven't
owned one for nine years, since the city grew up so around
me I had to sell off mv land to keep the taxes from eatin' me
up. If I did own a hoss now," he laughed, " I'd have no place
to keep him except under the bed, like they do the houn'-dogs
back in Kentucky."

Peters Son 187

She made light of the walk, for Joe's bright and sanguine
carriage had lightened her sorrow. She had hope to walk
home with, and no wayfarer ever traveled in more pleasant
company.

The colonel and his daughter pressed her to make their
home her resting-place when in town, even inviting her to take
up her abode there until the trial. This generous hospitality
she could not accept on account of the " critters " at home
which needed her daily care, and the eggs which had to be
gathered and saved and sold, all against the happy day
when her boy Joe would walk out free and clear from the
door of the county jail.

CHAPTER XII

THK SUNBEAM OX THK WALL

TIIK sheriff was a mild-mannered man, whose head was
shaped like the end of a watermelon. His hair was
close-cut and very thin at the top, due to the fact that all
the nourishing substances both inside and outside his head, or
any way appertaining thereto, went into the maintenance of
the sheriff's mustache, which was at least twice as large as
Bill Frost's.

This, of course, was as it should have been, for even the
poorest kind of a sheriff is more than twice as important as
the very best sort of constable. In those davs it was the
custom for sheriffs in that part of the country to train up
these prodigious mustaches, perhaps in the belief that such
adornments lent them the appearance of competence and
valor, of which endowments nature had given them no other
testimonial. In any event it is known that many a two-inch
sheriff took his stand behind an eight-inch mustache, and
walked boldly in the honor of his constituents.

The sheriif of Shelbvville was a type of this class, both in
mental depth and facial adornment. lie was exceedingly jeal
ous of his power, and it was his belief that too many liberties
permitted a prisoner, and too many favors shown, acted in
contravention of the law's intent as interpreted by the prose
cuting attorney; namely, that a person under the cloud of
accusation should be treated as guilty until able to prove
himself innocent. Therefore the sheriff would not allow Joe
Xewbolt to leave his cell to meet visitors after his arraign
ment.

The meeting between the prisoner and his mother in the

1SS

The Sunbeam on the Watt 189

office of the jail was to be the last of that sort; all who came
in future must see him at the door of his cell. That was the
rule laid down to Joe when he parted from his mother and
Colonel Price that day.

As a cell in a prison-house, perhaps Joe's place of confine
ment was fairly comfortable. It was situated in the basement
of the old court-house, where there was at least light enough
to contemplate one's misery by, and sufficient air to set one
longing for the fields. There was but one other prisoner, a
horse-thief, waiting for trial.

This loquacious fellow, who was lodged directly across the
corridor, took great pains to let Joe see the admiration and
esteem in which he held him on account of the distinguished
charge under which he was confined. He annoyed Joe to such
extent that he asked the sheriff that evening to shift them
about if possible.

" Well, I'll move him if you say so, but I left him there
because I thought he'd be company for you," said the sheriff.
"I don't mind talkin' in this jail when there's no more than
two in it."

" I don't want to talk," said Joe.

So the horse-thief was removed to the farther end of the
corridor, where he kept up a knocking on the bars of his cell
during the early hours of the night, and then turned off his
diversion by imitating the sound of a saw on steel, which he
could do with his tongue against his teeth with such realism
as to bring the sheriff down in his nightshirt, with a lantern
in one hand and a shotgun in the other.

Joe's second night in jail passed very much like the first,
when they had brought him there all bewildered and dazed.
There was a grated window in the wall above his reach,
through which he could see the branches of an elm-tree, blow
ing bare of leaves ; beyond that a bit of sky. Joe sat on the
edge of his cot that second night a long time after the stars

190 The liondboii

fame out, ga/ing up at the bar-broken bit of sky, review
ing the events leading up to his situation.

There was no resentment in him against the jury of his
neighbors whose finding had sent him to jail under the cloud
of that terrible accusation ; he harbored no illt'eeling for tin-
busy, prying little coroner, who had questioned him so im
pertinently. There was one person alone, in the whole
world of men. to blame, and that was Curtis Morgan. He
could not have been far away on the day of the inquest;
news of the tragic outcome of Ollic's attempt to join him
must have traveled to his ears.

Yet he had not come forward to take the load of suspicion
from .Toe's shoulders by confessing the treacherous thing that
he had plotted. He need not have revealed the complete
story of his trespass upon the honor of Isom Chase, thought
floe; he could have saved Ollie's name before the neighbors,
and yet relieved Joe of all suspicion. Xow that Isom was
dead, he could have married her. Uut Morgan had not come.
lie was a coward as well as a rascal. It was more than likely
that, in fear of being found out, he had fled away.

And suppose that he never came back; suppose that Olhe
should not elect to stand forth and explain the hidden part
of that night's tragedy? She could not be expected, within
reason, to do this. Even the thought that she might weaken
and do so was abhorrent to Joe. It was not a woman's part
to make a sacrifice like that ; the world did not expect it of
her. It rested with Morgan, the traitor to hospitality;
Morgan, the ingratiating scoundrel, to come forward and
set him free. Morgan alone could act honorably in that
clouded case; but if he should elect to remain hidden and
silent, who would be left to answer but Joe Xewbolt?

And should he reveal the thing that would bring him
liberty? Was freedom more precious than his honor, and the'
honor of a poor, shrinking, deluded woman?

The Sunbeam on the Wall 191

No. He was bound by a gentleman's obligation ; self-
assumed, self-appointed. He could not tell.

But what a terrible situation, what an awful outlook for
him in such event ! They hung men for murder on the j ail-
yard gallows, with a knot of rope behind the left ear and a
black cap over the face. And such a death left a stain upon
the name that nothing would purify. It was an attainder
upon generations unborn.

•Joe walked his cell in the agony of his sudden and acute
understanding of the desperate length to which this thing
might carry him. Hammer had protested, with much show
of certainty, that he would get him off without much difficulty.
But perhaps Hammer was counting on him to reveal what
he had kept to himself at the inquest. What should he do
about that in his relations with Hammer? Should he tell
him about Morgan, and have him set men on his track to
drag him back and make him tell the truth? Granting that
they found him, who was there to make him speak?

Could not Morgan and Ollie, to cover their own shame and
blame, form a pact of silence or denial and turn back his
good intentions in the form of condemnation upon his own
head? How improbable and unworthy of belief his tale, with
its reservations and evasions, would sound to a jury with
Morgan and Ollie silent.

The fright of his situation made him feverish ; he felt that
he could tear at the walls with his hands, and scream, and
scream until his heart would burst. He was unmanned there
in the dark. He began to realize this finally after his frenzy
had thrown him into a fever. He gave over his pacing of
the little cell, and sat down again to reason and plan.

Hammer had made so much talk about the papers which
he would get ready that Joe had been considerably impressed.
He saw now that it would require something more than papers
to make people understand that he had a gentleman's reason,

192 The Bondboy

and not a thief's, for concealing what they had pressed him
to reveal.

There was a woman first, and that was about all that Joe
could make of the situation up to that time. She must he
protected, even though unworthy. None knew of that taint
upon her but himself and the fugitive author of it, but Joe
could not bring himself to contemplate liberty bought at the
price of her public degradation. This conclusion refreshed
him, and dispelled the phantoms from his hot brain.

After the sounds of the town had fallen quiet, and the
knocking of feet on the pavement along his prison wall had
ceased, Joe slept. He woke steady, and himself again, long
before he could see the sun, yellow on the boughs of the
elm-tree.

The sheriff furnished him a piece of comb, and he smoothed
his hair by guess, a desperate character, such as he was
accounted by the officer, not being allowed the luxury of a
mirror. One might lick the quicksilver from the back of a
mirror, or open an artery with a fragment of it, or even
pound the glass and swallow it. Almost anything was nicer
than hanging, so the sheriff said.

Scant as the food had been at Isom's until his revolt had
forced a revision of the old man's lifelong standard, Joe felt
that morning after his second jail breakfast that lie would
have welcomed even a hog-jowl and beans. The sheriff was
allowed but forty cents a day for the maintenance of each
prisoner, and, counting out the twenty-five cents profit which
he felt as a politician in good standing to be his due, the
prisoners' picking was very lean indeed.

That morning Joe's breakfast had been corn-pone, cold,
with no lubricant to ease it down the lane. There had been
a certain squeamish liquid in addition, which gave off the
smell of a burning straw-stack, served in a large tin cup.
Joe had not tasted it, but his nose had told him that it was

The Sunbeam on the Wall 193

" wheat coffee," a brew which his mother had made sometimes
in the old days of their darkest adversity.

Joe knew from the experience of the previous day that
there would be nothing more offered to fortify the stomach
until evening. The horse-thief called up from his end of the
jail, asking Joe how he liked the fare.

Reserved as Joe was disposed to be toward him, he ex
pressed himself somewhat fully on the subject of the sheriff's
cuisine. The horse-thief suggested a petition to the county
court or a letter to the sheriff's political opponent. He said
that his experience in jails had been that a complaint on the
food along about election time always brought good results.
Joe was not interested in the matter to that extent. He
told the fellow that he did not expect to be a permanent
occupant of the jail.

''You think 37ou'll go down the river for a double nine?"
he asked.

" I don't know what you mean," said Joe.

" To the pen for life, kid ; that's what I mean."

" I don't know," said Joe gloomily.

" Well, say. I tell you, if they give you the other," said the
friendly thief, lifting his naturally high voice to make it carry
along the echoing passage, " you'll git plenty to eat, and
three times a day, too. When they put a feller in the death-
cell they pass in the finest chuck in the land. You know,
if a feller's got a smart lawyer he can keep up that line of
eatin' for maybe two or three years by appealin' his case
and dodges like that."

" I don't want to talk," said Joe.

"Oh, all right, kid," said the thief flippantly. Then he
rattled his grated door to draw Joe's attention.

" But, 'y God, kid, the day's comin' to you when you will
want to talk, and when you'd give the teeth out of your
mouth, and nearly the eyes out of your head, for the sound

104 The Boiulboy

of a friendly human voice aimed at you. Let 'em take you
off down the river to Jeff' City and put you behind them
tall walls once, where the best you bear's a cuss from a
guard, and v here you march along with your hands on the
shoulders of the man in front of you; and another one be
hind YOU does the same to you, and their eyes all down
and their fact's the color of corpses, and then you'll know!

"You'll hear them old fellers, them long-timers, whispcrin'
in the night, talkin' to theirselves, and it'll sound to you like
wind in the grass. And you'll think of grass and trees and
things like that on the outside, and you'll feel like you want
to ram your head ag'in' the wall and yell. Maybe you'll
do it — plenty of 'em docs- — and then they'll give you the
water-cure, they'll force it down YOU with a hose till you think
you'll bust. I tell you. kid. I knotc, 'y God! I've been there
— but not for no double-nine like they'll give you."

The man's voice seemed to be hanging and sounding yet
in the corridor, even after he was silent, his cruel picture
standing in distorted fancy before Joe's eyes. Joe wiped the
sweat from his forehead, breathing through his open mouth.

"Well, maybe they won't, though," said the fellow, resum
ing as if after considering it, "maybe they'll give you the
quick and painless, I don't know."

Joe had been standing at his cell door, drawn to listen ttf
the lecture of his fellow prisoner, terrible, hopeless, as it
sounded in his cars. Now he sat on his bedside again, feeling
that this was indeed a true forecast of his own doom. The
sun seemed already shut out from him in the morning of
his day, the prison silence settling, never to be broken again
in those shadows where shuttling men filed by, with eyes down
cast and faces gray, like the faces of the dead.

Life without liberty would be a barren field, he knew; but
liberty without honor would yield no sweeter fruit. And who
was there in the world of honorable men to respect a coward

The Sunbeam on the Wall 195

who had saved his own skin from the fire by stripping a frail
woman's back to the brand? A gentleman couldn't do it,
said Joe, at the end, coming back from his sweating race
with fear to the starting-place, a good deal cooled, not a
little ashamed.

Let them use him as they might ; he would stand by his
first position in the matter. He would have to keep on lying,
as he had begun ; but it would be repeating an honorable
lie, and no man ever went to hell for that.

The sun was coming through the high cell window, broad
ening its oblique beam upon the wall. Looking up at it, Joe
thought that it must be mid-morning. Now that his panic
was past, his stomach began to make a gnawing and insistent
demand for food. Many a heavy hour must march by,
thought he, before the sheriff came with his beggarly por
tion. He felt that in case he should be called upon to endure
imprisonment long he must fall away to a skeleton and die.

In his end of the corridor the horse-thief was still, and Joe
was glad of it. No matter how earnestly he might come td
desire the sound of a human voice in time, he did not Avant to
hear the horse-thief's then, nor any other that prophesied
such disquieting things.

There was a barred gate across the corridor at the foot
of the stairs which led up to the sheriff's office. Joe's heart
jumped with the hope that it was his mother coming when
he heard the key in the lock and voices at the grating.

" Right down there, to the right," the sheriff was directing.
"When you want to leave just come here and rattle the
lock. I can't take no chances bringin' such desperate fellers
as him up to the office, colonel. You can see that as well
as me."

What Colonel Price replied Joe could not hear, for his
low-modulated voice of culture was like velvet beside a horse-
blanket compared to the sheriff's.

196 The Bondboy

" I'm over on this side, colonel, sir," said Joe before he
could see him.

And then the colonel stepped into the light which came
through the cell window, bringing with him one who seemed
as fair to Joe in that somber place as the bright creatures
who stood before Jacob in Bethel that night he slept with
his head upon a stone.

"This is my daughter," said Colonel Price. "We called
in to kind of cheer you up."

She offered Joe her hand between the bars; his went for
ward to meet it gropingly, for it lacked the guidance of his
eyes.

Joe was honey-bound, like an eager bee in the heart of some
great golden flower, tangled and leashed in a thousand
strands of her hair. The lone sunbeam of his prison had
slipped beyond the lintel of his low door, as if it had timed
its coming to welcome her, and now it lay like a hand in
benediction above her brow.

Her hair was as brown as wild honey; a golden glint lay
in it here and there under the sun, like the honeycomb. A
smile kindled in her brown eyes as she looked at him, and
ran out to the corners of them in little crinkles, then moved
slowly upon her lips. Her face was quick with the eagerness
of youth, and she was tall.

" I'm surclv beholden to you, Miss Price, for this favor,"
said Joe, lapsing into the Kentucky mode of speech, " and
I'm ashamed to be caught in such a place as this."

" You have nothing to be ashamed of," said she ; " we know
you arc innocent."

"Thank you kindly, Miss Price," said he with quaint, old
courtesy that came to him from some cavalier of Cromwell's
day.

" I thought you'd better meet Alice," explained the colonel,
"and get acquainted with her, for young people have tastes

The Sunbeam on the Wall 197

in common that old codgers like me have outgrown. She
might see some way that I would overlook to make you more
comfortable here during the time you will be obliged to wait."

" Yes, sir," said Joe, hearing the colonel's voice, but not
making much out of what he was saying.

He was thinking that out of the gloom of his late cogita
tions she had come, like hope hastening to refute the argument
of the horse-thief. His case could not be so despairing with
one like her believing in him. It was a matter beyond a person
such as a horse-thief, of course. One of a finer nature could
understand.

" Father spoke of some books," she ventured ; " if you
will "

Her voice was checked suddenly by a sound which rose
out of the farther end of the corridor and made her start
and clutch her father's arm. Joe pressed his face against
the bars and looked along at his fellow prisoner, who was
dragging his tin cup over the bars of his cell door with rapid
strokes.

When the thief saw that he had drawn the attention of the
visitors, he thrust his arm out and beckoned to the colonel.
" Mister, I want to ask you to do me a little turn of a favor,"
he begged in a voice new to Joe, so full of anguish, so tremu
lous and weak. " I want you to carry out to the world and
put in the papers the last message of a dyin' man!"

" What's the matter with you, you poor wretch? " asked the
colonel, moved to pity.

"Don't pay any attention to him," advised Joe; "he's
only acting up. He's as strong as I am. I think he wants
to beg from you."

The colonel turned away from him to resume his conference
with Joe, and the horse-thief once more rattled his cup across
the bars.

"That noise is very annoying," said the colonel, turning

198 Tlic llondbo?/

to the man tartly. "Stop it now, before I call the sheriff!"

" Friend, it's a starvin' man that's appealin' to you,'' said
the prisoner, "it's a man that ain't had a full meal in three
wet'ks. Ask that gentleman what we git here, let him tell you
what this here sheriff that's up for election agin serves to us
poor fellers. Corn dodger for breakfast, so cold you could
keep fish on it. and as hard as the rocks in this wall! That's
what we git, and that's all we git. Ask your friend."

"Is he telling the truth?" asked the colonel, looking curi
ously at Joe.

" I'm afraid he is, colonel, sir."

" I'll talk to him," said the colonel.

In a moment he was listening to the horse-thief's earnest
relation of the hardships which he had suffered in the Shelby-
ville jail, and Joe and Alice were standing face to face, with
less than a yard's space between them, but a barrier there
as insuperable as an alp.

lie wanted to say something to cause her to speak again,
for her low voice was as wonderful to him as the sound of
some strange instrument moved to unexpected music by a
touch in the dark. lie saw her looking down the corridor,
and swiftly around her, as if afraid of what lav in the shad
ows of the cells, afraid of the memories of old crimes which
thev held, and the lingering recollection of the men they had
contained.

" He'll not do any harm, don't be afraid," said he.

" Xo, I'm not," she told him, drawing a little nearer, quite
unconsciously, he knew, as she spoke. "I was thinking how
dreadful it must be here for you, especially in the night. But
it will not be for long," she cheered him; "we know they'll
soon set you free."

" I suppose a person would think a guilty man would suffer
more here than an innocent one," said he, "but I don't think
that's so. That man down there knows he's iroin"- to be

The Sunbeam on the Wall 199

sent to the penitentiary for stealing a horse, but he sings."

She was looking at him, a little cloud of perplexity in her
eyes, as if there was something about him which she had not
looked for and did not quite understand. She blushed when
Joe turned toward her, slowly, and caught her eyes at their
sounding.

He was thinking over a problem new to him, also — the
difference in women. There was Ollie, who marked a period
in his life when he began to understand these things, dimly.
Ollie was not like this one in any particular that he could
discover as common between them. She was far back in the
past today, like a simple lesson, hard in its hour, but con
quered and put by. Here was one as far above Ollie as a'
star.

Miss Price began to speak of books, reaching out with a
delicate hesitancy, as if she feared that she might lead into
waters too deep for him to follow. He quickly relieved her
of all danger of embarrassment on that head by telling her
of some books which he had not read, but wished to read, hold
ing to the bars as he talked, looking wistfully toward the
spot of sunlight which was now growing as slender as a
golden cord against the gray wall. His eyes came back to
her face, to find that look of growing wonder there, to see her
quick blush mount and consume it in her eyes like a flame.

" You've made more of the books that you've read than
many of us with a hundred times more," said she warmly.
" I'll be ashamed to mention books to you again."

" You oughtn't say that," said he, hanging his head in
boyish confusion, feeling that same sense of shyness and desire
to hide as came over him when his mother recounted his
youthful campaign against the three books on the Newbolt
shelf.

" You remember what you get out of them," she nodded
gravely, " I don't."

200 TJic

"My father used to say that was one advantage in having
a few," said he.

The colonel joined them then, the loud-spoken benediction
of the horse-thief following him. There was a flush of indig
nation in his face and fire in his eyes.

"I'll expose the scoundrel; I'll show him that he can't rob
both the county and the helpless men that misfortune throws
into his hands!" the colonel declared.

He gave his hand to Joe in his ceremonious fashion.

" I've got some pressing business ahead of me with the
sheriff," he said, "and we'll be going along. But I'll mana

e

to come over every few days and bring what cheer I can to
you, Joe."

"Don't put yourself out," said Joe; "but I'll be mighty
glad to see you any time."

"This is only a cloud in your life, boy; it will pass, and
leave your sky serene and bright," the colonel cheered.

"I'll see how many of the books that you've named we
have," said Alice. " I'm afraid we haven't them all."

" I'll appreciate anything at all," said Joe.

He looked after her as far as his eves could follow, and
then he listened until her footsteps died, turning his head,
checking his breath, as if holding his very life poised to catch
the fading music of some exquisite strain.

When she was quite out of hearing, he sighed, and marked
an imaginary line upon the wall. Her head had reached to
there, just on a level with a certain bolt. lie measured him
self against it to see where it struck in his own height. It
was just a boy's trick. lie blushed when he found himself
at it.

He sat on his bedside and took up the Book. The humor
for reading seemed to have passed away from him for then.
But there was provender for thought, new thought, splendid
and bright-colored. lie felt that lie had been associating,

The Sunbeam on the Wall 201

for the first time in his life, with his own kind. He never
had seen Alice Price before that day, for their lives had been
separated by all that divides the eminent from the lowly,
the rich from the poor, and seeing her had been a moving
revelation. She had come into his troubled life and soothed
it, marking a day never to be forgotten. He sat there think
ing of her, the unopened book in his hand.

How different she was from Ollie, the wild rose clambering
unkept beside the hedge. She was so much more delicate in
form and face than Ollie — Ollie, who — There was a sense
of sacrilege in the thought. He must not name her with
Ollie ; he must not think of them in the measure of comparison.
Even such juxtaposition was defiling for Alice. Ollie, the
unclean !

Joe got up and walked his cell. How uncouth he was,
thought he, his trousers in his boot-tops, his coat spare upon
his growing frame. He regarded himself with a feeling of
shame. Up to that time he never had given his clothing any
thought. As long as it covered him, it was sufficient. But
it was different after seeing Alice. Alice! What a soothing
name !

Joe never knew what Colonel Price said to the sheriff; but
after the little gleam of sun had faded out of his cell, and the
gnawings of his stomach had become painfully acute, his
keeper came down with a basket on his arm. He took from
it a dinner of boiled cabbage and beef, such as a healthy man
might lean upon with confidence, and the horse-thief came in
for his share of it, also.

When the sheriff came to Joe's cell for the empty dishes,
he seemed very solicitous for his comfort and welfare.

"Need any more cover on your bed, or anything?"

No, Joe thought there was enough cover ; and he did not
recall in his present satisfied state of stomach, that his cell
lacked any other comfort that the sheriff could supply.

202 TJic

" Well, if you want anything, nil you've got to do is holler,"
said the sheriff' in a friendly way.

There is nothing equal to running for office to move the
love of a man for his fellows, or to mellow his heart to
magnanimous deeds.

" Say,'' called the horse-thief in voice softened by the
vapors of his steaming dinner, kk that friend of yours with the
whiskers all over him is ace-high over here in this end of the
dump! And say, friend, they could keep me here for life
if they'd send purty girls like that one down here to see me
once in a while. You're in right, friend ; you certainly air
in right ! "

Colonel Price had kindled a fire in his library that night,
for the first chill of frost was in the air. lie sat in medita
tive pose, the newspaper spread wide and crumpling upon
the floor beside him in his listlessly swinging hand. The
light of the bla/ing logs was laughing in his glasses, and the
soft gleam of the shaded lamp was on his hair.

Books by the hundred were there in the shelves about him.
Old books, brown in the dignity of age and service to genera
tions of men: new books, tucked among them in bright colors,
like transient blooms in the homely stability of garden soil.
There was a long oak table, made of native lumber and
finished in its natural color, smoke-brown from age, like the
books: and there was Alice, like a nimble bee skimming the
sweets of flowers, flitting here and there in this scholar's
sanctuary.

Colonel Price looked up out of his meditation and followed
her with a smile.

"Have you found them all?" he asked.

"I've found Milton and The Lays of Ancient Home and
Don Quixote, but I can't find the Meditations of Marcus
Aurdius" said she.

The Sunbeam on the Wall 203

" Judge Maxwell has it," he nodded ; " he carried it away
more than a month ago. It was the first time he ever met
an English translation, he said. I must get it from him ;
he has a remarkably short memory for borrowed books."

Alice joined him in the laugh over the judge's shortcoming.

" He's a regular old dear ! " she said.

" Ah, yes ; if he was only f orty years younger, Alice —
if he was only forty years younger ! " the colonel sighed.

" I like him better the way he is," said she.

"Where did that boy ever hear tell of Marcus Aurelius?"
he wondered.

" I don't know." She shook her head. " I don't under
stand him, he seems so strange and deep. He's not like a boy.
You'd think, from talking with him, that he'd had university
advantages."

" It's blood," said the colonel, with the proud swelling
of a man who can boast that precious endowment himself,
" you can't keep it down. There's no use talking to me about
this equality between men at the hour of birth ; it's all a poetic
fiction. It would take forty generations of this European
scum such as is beginning to drift across to us and taint our
national atmosphere to produce one Joe Newbolt! And he's
got blood on only one side, at that.

" But the best in all the Newbolt generations that have
gone before seem to be concentrated in that boy. He'll come
through this thing as bright as a new bullet, and he'll make
his mark in the world, too. Marcus Aurelius. Well, bless
my soul ! "

" Is it good? " she asked, stacking the books which she had
selected on the table, standing with her hand on them, looking
down at her smiling father with serious face.

" I wouldn't say that it would be good for a young lady
with forty beaus and unable to choose among them, or for
a frivolous young thing with three dances a week —

14

201 The Roiulbo?/

" Oh, never more than two at the very height of social
dissipation in Shelby ville !" she laughed.

lie lifted a finger, imposing silence, and a laugh lurked in
his eyes.

" Xo, I'd not say that such a light-headed creature would
find much fodder in the ruminations and speculations and
wise conclusions of our respected friend, Marcus,"' said he.
" But a lad like Joe Xewbolt, with a pair of eyes in his head
like a prophet, will get a great deal of good, and even com
fort, out of that book."

"We must get it from Judge Maxwell," said she
conclusively.

'"A strange lad, a strange lad," reflected the colonel.

"So tall and strong," said she. "Why, from the way his
mother spoke of him, I expected to sec a little fellow with
trousers up to his knees."

She sat at the table and began cutting the leaves of a new
magazine.

Colonel Price lifted his paper, smoothed the crumples out
of it, adjusted the focus of his glasses, and resumed reading
the county news. They seemed contented and happy there,
alone, with their fire in the chimney. Fire itself is a compan
ion. It is like youth in a room.

There was between them a feeling of comradeship and
understanding which seldom lives where youth stands on one
hand, age on the other. Years ago Alice's mother had gone
beyond the storms and vexations of this life. Those two
remaining of the little family had drawn together, closing
up the space that her absence had made. There seemed no
disparity of years, and their affection and fidelity had come
to be a community pride.

Alice was far from being the frivolous young thing that
her father's banter indicated. She had a train of admirers,
never thinning from year to year, to be certain, for it had

The Sunbeam on the Wall 205

been the regular fate of adolescent male Shelbyville to get
itself tangled up in love with Alice Price ever since her high-
school days. Many of the youngsters soon outgrew the
affection; but it seemed to become a settled and permanent
affliction in others, threatening to incapacitate them from
happiness, according to their young view of it, and blast their
ambitions in the face of the world.

Every girl, to greater or less extent, has her courtiers of
that kind. Nature has arranged this sort of tribute for the
little queen-bees of humanity's hives. And so there were other
girls in Shelbyville who had their train of beaus, but there
was none quite so popular or so much desired as Alice Price.

Alice was considered the first beauty of the place. Added
to this primary desirability was the fact that, in the fine
gradations of pedigrees and the stringent exactions of blood
which the patrician families of Shelbyville drew, Colonel Price
and his daughter were the topmost plumes on the peacock
of aristocracy. Other young ladies seemed to make all haste
to assuage the pangs of at least one young man by marrying
him, and to blunt the hopes of the rest by that decisive act.
Not so Alice Price. She was frank and friendly, as eager
for the laughter of life as any healthy young Mroman should
be, but she gave the young men kindly counsel when they
became insistent or borcsome, and sent them away.

Shelbyville was founded by Kentuckians ; some of the old
State's best families were represented there. A person's
pedigree was his credentials in the society of the slumbering
little town, nestled away among the blue hills of Missouri.
It did not matter so much about one's past, for blood will
have its vagaries and outflingings of youthful spirit ; and even
less what the future promised, just so there was blood to
vouch for him at the present.

Blood had not done a great deal for Shelbyville, no matter
what its excellencies in social and political life. The old town

206 The Bondboy

stood just about us it was finished, sixty years and more
before that time. Upstart cities had sprung up not far
away, throwing Shelbyville into hopeless shadow. The en
tire energies of its pioneers seemed to have been expended in
its foundation, leaving them too much exhausted to transmit
anv of their former fire and strength to their sons. It fol
lowed that the sons of Shelbyville were not what their fathers
had been.

Of course, there were exceptions where one of them rose
once in a while and made a streak across the state or national
firmament. Some of them were eminent in the grave profes
sions ; most of them were conductors of street cars in Kan
sas City, the nearest metropolis. There was not room in
Shelbyville for all its sons to establish themselves at law, even
if they had all been equipped, and if a man could not be a
lawyer or a college professor, what was open to him, indeed,
but conducting a street-car? That was a placid life.

It is remarkable how Kentuckians can maintain the breed
of their horses through many generations, but so frequently
fall short in the standard of their sons. Kentuckians are
only an instance. The same might be said of kings.

Not understanding her exactions in the matter, nor her
broader requirements, Shelbyville could not make out why
Alice Price remained unmated. She was almost twenty, they
said, which was coming very close to the age-limit in Shelby
ville. It was nothing unusual for girls to marry there at
seventeen, and become grandmothers at thirty-seven.

If she wanted better blood than she could find in Shelby
ville, the old gentlemen said, twisting their white old heads in
argumentative finality, she'd have to go to the nobility of
Europe. Even then she'd be running her chances, by Ned !
They grew indignant when she refused to have their sons.
They took it up with the colonel, they remonstrated, they
went into pedigrees and offered to produce documents.

The Sunbeam on the Wall 207

There was Shelley Bryant's father, a fine, straight-backed
old gentleman with beard as white as the plumage of a dove.
His son was a small, red-faced, sandy-haired, pale-eyed chap
with spaces between his big front teeth. He traded in horses,
and sometimes made as much as fifteen dollars on a Saturday.
His magnitude of glory and manly dignity as compared to
his father's was about that of a tin pan to the sun.

When Alice refused Shelley, the old general — he had won
the title in war, unlike Colonel Price — went to the colonel
and laid the matter off with a good deal of emphasis and
flourishing of his knotted black stick. If a woman demanded
blood, said the general, where could she aspire above Shelley?
And beyond blood, what was there to be considered when it
came to marrying and breeding up a race of men?

Champion that he was of blood and lineage, Colonel Price
was nettled by the old gentleman's presumptuous urging of
his unlikely son's cause.

" I am of the opinion, sir," Colonel Price replied, with
a good bit of hauteur and heat, " that my daughter always
has given, and always will give, the preference to brains ! "

General Bryant had not spoken to the colonel for two
months after that, and his son Shelley had proved his superi
ority by going off to Kansas City and taking a job reading
gas-meters.

Colonel Price went to the mantel and filled his pipe from
the tobacco-jar. He sat smoking for a little while, his paper
on his knee.

" The lad's in deeper trouble, I'm afraid, than he under
stands," said he at last, as if continuing his reflections aloud,
" and it may take a bigger heave to pull him out than any
of us think right now."

" Oh, I hope not," said Alice, looking across at him sud
denly, her eyes wide open with concern. " I understood that
this was just a preliminary proceeding, a sort of formality

208 The Bondboy

to conform to the legal requirements, and that he would be
released when they brought him up before Judge Maxwell.
At least, that was the impression that he gave me of the case
himself."

"Joe is an unsophisticated and honest lad," said the
colonel. " There is something in the case that he refused
to disclose or discuss before the coroner's jury, they say.
I don't know what it is, but it's in relation to the quarrel
between him and Isom Chase which preceded the tragedy. He
seems to raise a point of honor on it, or something. I heard
them say this afternoon that it was nothing but the fear that
it would disclose his motive for the crime. They say he was
making off with old Chase's money, but I don't believe that."

" They're wrong if they think that," said she, shaking her
head seriously, " he'd never do a thing like that."

" No, I don't believe he would. But they found a bag of
money in the room, old Chase had it clamped in the hook of
his arm, they say."

''Well, I'm sure Joe Xewbolt never had his hands on it,
anyhow," said she.

"That's right," approved the colonel, nodding in slow
thoughtfulness ; "we must stand up for him, for his own sake
as well as Peter's. lie's worthy."

"And he's innocent. Can't you see that, father?"

"As plain as daylight," the colonel said.

The colonel stretched out his legs toward the blaze, crossed
his feet and smoked in comfort.

" But I wonder what it can be that the boy's holding
back?"

" He has a reason for it, whatever it is," she declared.

" That's as certain as taxes," said the colonel. " He's a
remarkable boy, considering the chances he's had — bound
out like a nigger slave, and beaten and starved, I'll warrant.
A remark-able lad; very, very. Don't you think so, Alice?"

The Sunbeam on the Wall 209

" I think lie is, indeed," said she.

A long silence.

A stick in the chimney burned in two, the heavy ends
outside the dogs dropped down, the red brands pointing
upward. The colonel put his hand to his beard and sat in
meditation. The wind was rising. Now and then it sounded
like a groan in the chimney-top. Gray ashes formed, frost-
like, over the ardent coals. The silence between them held
unbroken.

Both sat, thought-wandering, looking into the fire

CHAPTER XIII

UNTIL THE DAY BREAK

ALTHOUGH Isom Chase had been in his grave a week,
and Judge Little had been cracking his coat-tails over
the road between his home and the county-seat daily, the
matter of the will and the administration of the estate
remained as in the beginning.

Judge Little had filed the will for probate, and had made
application for letters of administration, which the court
had denied. Under the terms of the will, it was pointed out,
he was empowered to act in that capacity only in case of the1
testator's death before the majority of the legatee. The date
of the document proved that the heir was now long past his
majority, and the only interest that remained to Judge Little
in the matter seemed to be the discovery of the testator's
unknown, unseen, and unbelieved-in son.

If Isom ever had fathered a son, indeed, and the child had
died in infancy, the fact had slipped the recollection of the
oldest settler. Perhaps the proof of that mysterious matter
lay in the hands of the two witnesses to Isom's will. They
should know, if anybody knew, people said.

One of these witnesses, Thomas Cogshawl, had died long
since, and there remained behind neither trace nor remem
brance of him save a leaning, yellowed tombstone carrying
the record of his achievements in this world. They were
succinctly recounted in two words : Born and Died. His
descendants were scattered, his family dispersed.

The other witness, John Owens, was in the county poor-
house, deaf, dumb, and blind, his children dead, his money

210

Until the Day Break 211

gone. Communication with him, except by prods and thumps,
had been out of the question for ten years and more.

On the advice of her neighbors, Ollie had engaged a lawyer
to guard her interests, and make a fight in the courts, if it
came to that, in an effort to retain the property. It was
a shame, said the neighbors ; Isom never had a son, or, if
he did have one, he had no business to do any such sur
reptitious fathering.

While they denounced Isom, Judge Little was advertising
in the metropolitan papers for the mysterious legatee, for
there is no man so faithful to his trust as the administrator
of another's estate. Although the property had not yet
succeeded to his hands, the judge was proceeding in confi
dence. If the existence of Isom Chase's son could not be
proved, neither could it be disproved.

And there stood the will in Isom's writing as plain as cow
tracks, naming him as administrator. It would all work
into his hands at the end, and there were rewards and emolu
ments for an administrator who understood his business, in
that estate.

That is true in the case of any executor in the affairs of
dead men, or receiver in the muddled business of the living.
That accounts for such men's inflexibility in carrying out
the provisions of unfeeling testators and the decrees of heart
less courts. The law must be applied to the letter, the wishes
of the deceased fulfilled to the last hateful particular, for
the longer the administrator or receiver is in place, the longer
flows the soothing stream of fees.

Ollie had passed out of the brief tranquillity which had
settled on her after the inquest and funeral. Worry had
overtaken her again, and a longing for the return of Morgan,
which seemed destined never to be quieted.

There was not so much concern for her in the ultimate
disposal of Isom's estate, for she had consoled herself all

212 The Romlboy

along, since the discovery of the will, that she would soon
be above the need of his miserly scrapings and hoarded
revenues of stint. Morgan would come, triumphant in his
red-wheeled buggy, and bear her awav to the sweet recom
pense of love, and the quick noises of life beyond that drowsy
place. For Morgan, and love, she could give it all over
without one regret, or a glance behind.

Yet, with the thought of what she already had given
for Morgan and love a quick catching of pain, a troubled
stirring bordering on panic, rose in her breast. Where was
Morgan, why did he remain away when he might come boldly
now, like a man, and claim his own? What if Morgan never
should come back? What if she should find herself a double
widow, bereft of both the living and the dead?

During her days she watched for him, straining her eyes up
and down the dust-white road. At night her cheek burned
upon her pillow, and her tears ran down, yearning for the
man who had her heart's love in his keeping and seemed
unworthy of the trust.

At such times her anger would flame hot against Joe. If
lie had not come into her affairs and muddled them, like a
•calf in a kitchen, all of this uncertainty and longing would
have been spared her. And it would be like the fool now, the
miserable, bleating bull-calf, to turn back on his word and
betray her. In that case, what should she do? Bow her
head, meekly, and bear him out? She did not think so.
There was little chance that anybody would credit Joe if
he should turn now on his own evidence, less if she should
maintain that his first version of the tragedy was true.
For what he had done by his impertinent meddling between
her and Morgan he deserved to suffer. lie must grin and
bear it now, said she.

Besides this feeling of revenge on Joe's luckless head, Ollie
had her reasons of selfishess and security for desiring him

Until the Day Break 213

out of the way. With him in prison for a long time — people
said it would be for life — the secret of her indiscretion with
Morgan would be safe. And then, if Morgan never came
back, perhaps another.

But she recoiled from the thought that they might hang
Joe for the murder of Isom. She did not want him hung,
for through her gathering cloud of blame for his too faithful
guardianship of his master's house, she had gleams of tender
ness and gratitude for him. She could not help comparing
him with Morgan in such moments of softness. Morgan had
let that boy drive him away ; he seemed to have gone with
such a terror of him that he never had looked back. Joe,
on the other hand, had stood by her through the storm.
No, she did not want them to hang Joe, but it would be
quite easy and comfortable with him out of the way for a
long, long time.

Public opinion was framing toward giving her the relief
that she desired. If anybody suspected that Ollie was con
cerned in her husband's death, it was some remote person
whose opinion did not affect the public mind. The current
belief was that Joe alone was to blame.

No matter how severe the world may be upon a woman
after she is down in the mire, there is no denying that it is
reluctant to tumble her from her eminence and throw her
there. A woman will find more champions than detractors in
the face of the most serious charge ; especially a young and
pretty one, or one whose life has been such as to shape sym
pathy for her in itself.

All her neighbors knew that Isom's wife had suffered. That
year of penance in her life brought Ollie before them in a
situation which was an argument and plea for their sympathy
and support.

In spite, then, of the coroner's attempt at the inquest to
drag Ollie into the tragedy, and to give foundation for his

214 The Bondboy

shrewd suspicion that there had been something between
Isoni's wife and bondman which the husband was unaware of,
no sensation nor scandal had come of that. The case was
widely talked of, and it was the hope of every voter in the
county that he would be drawn on the jury to try the boy
accused of the murder. Even the busiest farmers began to
plan their affairs so they would have at least one day to
spare to attend the trial at its most interesting point.

The date set for the trial was approaching, and so was
election dav. The prosecuting attorney, being up for re
election, hadn't time, at that busy hour, to trv a homicide
case. lie had to make speeches, and bestir himself to save his
valuable services to the state. The man penned in jail,
growing thin of cheek and lank of limb, could wait. There
would be other homicide cases, but there never would be
another prosecuting attorney so valuable as that one offering
himself, and his young ambitions, on the altar of public
service. That was according to his view. So lie notified
Hammer that the state would not be ready for trial on the
day set.

This pleased Hammer well enough, for the greater the
delay the wider the notoriety of the case would spread, the
larger his audience would be. By mutual agreement, tHe
case was put over for one month.

Joe protested against this delay in vain. Hammer said
that they would profit by it, as the ferment of the public
mind would settle meantime, and prejudice would not be so
sharp. He talked a great deal about " character witnesses,"
which Joe couldn't see the need of, and took down the names
of all the people whom Joe could name as having known him
all his life. Then Hammer went his way, to make speeches
in the campaign in support of the worthy sheriff.

So Joe found himself with another month ahead of him
before he could even hope to walk out into the sun again.

Until the Day Break 215

Jail was wearing on him. The disgrace of it was torture to
his sensitive mind, without the physical chafing to pull him
down to bones. Those two weeks had taken off his frame a
great deal of the flesh that he had gained during the summer.
His gauntness was more pronounced than it ever had been
before.

Mrs. Newbolt walked in twice a week to see him, carrying
with her a basket of biscuits and other homely things dear
to her son's palate. All of which the sheriff speared with
knitting-needles, and tried on various domestic animals, to
make certain that the Widow Newbolt did not cheat the
gallows out of its due by concealing saws in pies, or intro
ducing poison to her hopeless offspring in boiled eggs.

But all of her tempting relishes, or such of them, at least,
as reached Joe, were powerless to fill his hollow cheeks, grow
ing thinner and paler day by day. He could not eat witK
relish, he could not sleep with peace. If it had not been
for the new light that Alice Price had brought into his life,
he must have burned his young heart to ashes in his restive-
ness.

Twice again the colonel and Alice had visited Joe, once
to carry to him the books for which he had expressed a
desire, and again to bring the Meditations of Marcus
Aurelius, which Alice herself had gone after to Judge Max
well's house. Each time Joe fancied that she left a radiance
behind her that brightened and warmed his cell for days.

Nobody else in the town troubled himself about the pris
oner's welfare, for nobody else knew him. Two of the min
isters had called at the jail in the first da}Ts of Joe's incar
ceration, in a sort of urging-to-penitence state of mind, just
as if they were assured of Joe's guilt by reason of his very
obscurity. Joe had told them that he had a religion of his
own which seemed to fill all present needs, and did not want
to make any change. He was respectful, but lofty in his

21 6 The Eondhoy

bearing. So they put him down as a stiff-necked son of
Belial, and went away, leaving him to save himself if he
thought he was equal to the task, in a manner of challenge.

In the face of this clerical abandonment, people wondered
over the dee]) interest that Colonel Price and his daughter
seemed to have in the Widow Ncwbolt's son, who had neither
pride of family nor of possessions to recommend him.

Joe had not yet brought himself to the belief that it was
necessary to take his lawyer into his confidence, although
Hammer had made it unfeelingly plain to him that the with
holding of any vital fact would be fatal to his cause. Although
Joe was beginning to experience a deep and disquieting con
cern about the outcome of the trial, he was disposed to give
Morgan an honest man's chance to come forward and take
his share of it upon himself. If he should do that, then
Joe felt that he would be morally free to disclose all that
took place in the kitchen on the night Isom lost his life.

In case that Morgan did not come, or that he had gone
bevond the reach of Hammer or anybody else to fetch him
back, then there would not be one word of evidence to uphold
him, or justify his seemingly ridiculous stand of reticence.
Yet, perhaps Morgan was waiting until the trial day; per
haps he knew all about it, and would appear in time. So
argued Joe, in his great desire to be just to everybody.

He reviewed the matter in this wise with ceaseless repe
tition, always arriving at this same end, from which he drew
the comfort of hope. Perhaps Morgan would come in time.
At any event, he would wait until the last minute of the last
hour, and give him a man's chance to do what was honorable
and fair.

The talkative horse-thief had been tried and condemned,
and had gone his cheerful way to the penitentiary to serve
three years. Before leaving he had taken pains to sound
again his forecast of what was waiting Joe "down the river,"

Until the Day Break 217

in case they did not give him the " quick and painless." He
never had forgiven Joe his unwillingness to gossip with him
in jail. The fellow's vindictiveness was evident in the sneering
delight that he took on his last night in jail in calling Joe-
out of his sleep, or pretended sleep, to hear his description
of the terrors waiting a man condemned to prison for life.

Now that he was gone, Joe felt that his words lived after
him, like mold upon the walls, or a chilling damp between
the stones. The recollection of them could not be denied
his abnormally sharpened senses, nor the undoubted truth
of their terrifying picture shut out of his imagination by
any door of reasoning that he had the strength to close.
Condemnation to prison would mean the suspension of all
his young hopes and healthy desires ; it would bring him to
the end of his activities in the world as suddenly as death.
Considering ambition, love, happiness, men in prison were
already dead. They lived only in their faculty for suffering.

Would Morgan come to save him from that fate? That
was his sole speculation upon a solution of his pressing trou
ble. Without Morgan, Joe did not consider any other way.

Colonel Price had received lately a commission for a corn
picture from a St. Louis hotel, upon which he was working
without pause. He had reached that state of exalted cer
tainty in relation to corn that he never was obliged to put
aside his colors and wait the charge of inspiration. His
inspirational tide always was setting in when corn was the
subject. Work with the colonel in such case was a matter
of daylight.

On account of the order, the colonel had no time for Joe,
for art with him, especially corn art, was above the worries
and concerns of all men. He did not forget the prisoner
in the white heat of his commission. For several days he
had it in his mind to ask Alice to visit him, and carry to
him the assurance of the continuance of the family interest

218 The Bondboij

and regard. But it was an unconventional thing to request
of a young lady ; a week slipped past before the colonel
realized it while he temporized in his mind.

At last he approached it circuitously and with a great
deal of diplomatic concealment of his purpose, leaving ample
room for retreat without unmasking his intention, in case
he should discern indications of unwillingness.

By that time the election was over and the country regu
larly insured against anarch}', devastation, and ruin for two
years longer. The prosecuting attorney and the sheriff had
been reelectcd ; the machinery of the law was ready to turn
at the grist.

The colonel was pleased to see that Alice seconded him
in his admission that they had been treating Joe Newbolt
shamefully. Of course the sheriff was parti v to blame for
that, having set himself up with metropolitan importance,
now that he was secure in office. He had put aside Wednes
day as the one day of the week on which visitors, other than
relatives or counsel of prisoners, would be permitted to enter
the jail.

It chanced to be a Wednesday morning when the colonel
got around to it finally, and they agreed heartily and warmly
that somebody ought to go and carry a little gleam of cheer
and encouragement to Joe. The colonel looked at his un-

O

finished picture, then at the mellow light of the autumn
day, so much like the soul of corn itself, and then at Alice.
He lifted his eyebrows and waved his hands in a gesture of
helplessness.

''Never mind," said she; "you go ahead with the picture;
I'll go alone."

The colonel blessed her, and turned to his picture with
a great sigh of relief. Alice left him to prepare for her
visit, a Mutter of eagerness in her heart, a feeling of timid
nervousness which was unaccountable and strange.

Until the Bay Break 219

She was not accustomed to trembling at the thought of
meeting young men. Usually she went forward to the ordeal
with a smile, which the victim would not have gathered a
great deal of pleasure from, in most cases, if he had been
able to read, for he would have seen her appraisement of him
on her lips. There was none of this amusing measurement
of Joe, no sounding of his shallows with her quick perception
like a sunbeam finding the pebbles in the bottom of a brook.
There was something in his presence which seemed like a cool
wind on the forehead, palpable, yet profound from the mys
tery of its source.

She had been surprised by the depth of this unpromising
subject, to whom she had turned at first out of pity for his
mother. The latent beauties of his rugged mind, full of the
stately poetry of the old Hebrew chronicles, had begun to
unfold to her sympathetic perception in the three visits she
had made in her father's company. Each visit had brought
some new wonder from that crude storehouse of his mind,
where Joe had been hoarding quaint treasures all his lonely,
companionless years.

And Joe, even in his confinement, felt that he was free in
a larger sense than he ever had been before. He was shaking
out his wings and beginning to live understandingly and
understood. It was beyond him to believe it sometimes ; be
yond him always to grasp the reality of Alice Price, and
her friendship for one so near the dust as he.

What was there about the poor folks' boy, bound out but
yesterday to Isom Chase, and still bound to his estate under
the terms of his articles? What was there in him to reach
out and touch the sympathies of this beautiful young woman,
who came to him with the scent of violets in her hair? Others
had despised him for his poverty, and fastened a name upon
him which was in itself a reproach. And still misunderstand
ing, they had carried him off to prison, charged with a dark

15

220 The Bondboy

and hideous crime. Xow this light had come to him in his
despair, like the beam of that white star above the Judean
plains. Like that star, she would stand far off to guide
him, and exalt his soul by its strivings to attain her level.
There their relations must cease. lie might yearn his heart
away in the gulf that lay between them, and stretch out his
empty hands for evermore, never to feel its nearer warmth
upon his breast. lie was the poor folks' bov.

There was a wan sun on the day she came alone to the
jail, a day so long remembered by Joe and held bv him so
dear. A solemn wind was roaming the tree-tops outside
his cell window; the branches stood bleak and bare against
the mottled sky.

Alice wore a dress of some soft gray material, which
seemed to embrace her in warm comfort, and reveal her in a
new and sprightly loveliness. Her rippled hair was free upon
her temples, her ear peeped out from beneath it with a
roguish tint upon it, as if it waited to be kissed, and blushed
for its own temerity. A gay little highland bonnet rode
the brown billows of her abundant hair, saucy and bold as
a corsair, with one bright little feather at its prow. Perhaps
it was no more than a goose quill, or a cock's plume dipped
in dye, but to Joe it seemed as glorious as if it had been
plucked from the fairest wing in the gardens of paradise.

The marvel of it came over Joe again as he stood close
against the bars to greet her. She, so rare and fine, so
genteel and fair, caring enough for him and his unpromising
fate to put aside the joyous business of her unhampered lift'
and seek him in that melancholy place. It seemed a dream,
yet she was there, her delicate dark brows lifted questioningly,
as if uncertain that he would approve her unconventional
adventure, a smile in the depths of her serene, frank eyes.
Her cheeks were glowing from the sparks of morning, and
her ungloved hand was reaching out to meet him.

Until the Day Break 221

He clasped it, and welcomed her with joy that he could
not have simulated any more than he could have hidden.
There was a tremor in his voice ; a hot sweep of blood flamed
in his face like a confession of his secret soul.

" I never saw you look so tall," said he slowly, measuring
her with adoring eyes.

" Maybe it's the dress," said she, looking herself over with
a little expressive sweep of the hands, as if to put all the
blame on that innocent nun-gray gown, if there was blame
to be borne.

She wore a little bunch of mignonette upon her breast,
just at the point where the slashing of her bodice ended,
and the gray gave way to a wedge of virginal white, as if
her sempstress had started to lay bare her heart. The
flowers quivered as from some internal agitation, nestling their
pale gold spikes against their lovely bed.

" I don't know that it's the dress," said he, " but you do
look taller than usual, it seems to me."

She laughed, as if she found humor in his solemn repetition
of such a trivial discovery.

" Well, I can't help being tall," she said. " How tall would
you have a lady grow? How tall do you think one ought
to be?"

" 'As high as my heart,' " said Joe, remembering Orlando's
words.

The color deepened in her cheeks ; she caught her breath
with a little "Oh!"

She wondered what sprout of blue-blooded and true-blooded
nobility in Shelbyville there was capable of turning a reply
like that without straining for it more than that pale cavalier
with his worn clothing hanging loose upon his bony frame.
When she ventured to lift her eyes to his face, she found him
grasping a bar of the cell door with one hand, as if he would
tear it from its frame. His gaze was fixed upon the high

222 The Bondboy

window, he did not turn. She felt that he was struggling
with himself that moment, but whether to drive to speech or
to withhold it, she could not tell.

" I wish I could go out there and run about five miles this
morning." he sighed.

She gave him sigh for sigh, feeling that something was
lost. He had not striven with himself merely to say that.
But from there they went on to talk of his coming trial,
and to expose the mutual hope that no further excuse would
be advanced for its continuance. He seemed to be certain
that the trial would see an end of his difficulty, and she
trembled to contemplate any other outcome.

So they stood and talked, and her face was glowing and
her eyes were bright.

"Your cheeks are as red as bitter-sweet," said he.

"There was frost last night," she laughed, "and the
cool wind makes my face burn/'

"I know just how it feels," said he, looking again toward
the window with pathetic wistfulness, the hunger of old long
ings in his eyes.

" It will not be long now until you are free," she said in low
voice of sympathy.

He was still looking at the brown branches of the bare
elm, now palely touched with the cloud-filtered autumn sun.

" I know where there's lots of it," said he, as if to himself,
"out in the hills. It loves to ramble over scrub-oak in the
open phices where there's plenty of sun. I used to pick arm
loads of it the last year I went to school and carry it to the
teacher. She liked to decorate the room with it."

lie turned to her with apologetic appeal, as if to excuse
himself for having wandered away from her in his thoughts.

" I put it over the mantel," she nodded ; " it lasts all winter."

" The wahoo's red now, too," said he. " Do you care
for it?"

Until the Day Break 223

" It doesn't last as long as bitter-sweet," said she.

" Bitter-sweet," said he reflectively, looking down into the
shadows which hung to the flagstones of the floor. Then he
raised his eyes to hers and surprised them brimming with
tears, for her heart was aching for him in a reflection of his
own lonely pain.

" It is emblematic of life," said he, reaching his hand out
through the bars to her, as if to beg her not to grieve over
the clouds of a day ; " you know there are lots of comparisons
and verses and sayings about it in that relation. It seems
to me that I've always had more of the bitter than the sweet
— but it will all come out right in time."

She touched his hand.

"Do you like mignonette?" she asked. "I've brought
you some."

" I love it ! " said he with boyish impetuosity. " I had a
bed of it last — no, I mean the summer before last — before
I was — before I went to work for Isom."

She took the flowers from her bosom and placed them
in his hand. The scent of them was in his nostrils, stirring
memories of his old days of simple poverty, of days in the
free fields. Again he turned his face toward the window, the
little flowers clutched in his hand. His breast heaved as if
he fought in the deep waters of his soul against some ignoble
weakness.

She moved a little nearer, and reached timidly through
the bars with the breathless quiet of one who offers a caress
to a sleeper. Her finger-tips touched his arm.

" Joe," said she, as if appealing in pity to him for permis
sion to share his agony.

He lifted the flowers to his lips and kissed the stems where
her hand had clasped them ; then bowed his head, his strong
shoulders against the bars.

" Joe ! " Her voice was a whisper in his ear, more than

224 The llondboy

pity in it, so it seemed to him in the revelation of that
moment ; more than entreaty, more than consolation.

Her hand was on his arm; he turned to her, shaking the
fallen locks of his wild hair hack from his brow. Then her
hand was in his, and there was a warm mist, as of summer
clouds, before his eyes. Her face was before him, and near —
so near. Not red like the bitter-sweet, but pale as the win
ter dawn. Her eyes were wide, her chin was lifted, and he-
was straining her to him with the jail door bars against his
breast.

Love comes that way, and death ; and the blow of sorrow,
and the wrench of life's last bitter pang. Only life is slow;
tedious and laggard with its burdens and its gleams.

lie remembered in a moment; the pressure of the bars
against his breast recalled him to his sad estate. He released
her hand and fell back a step from her, a sharp cry on his lips
as if he had seen her crushed and mangled just beyond his
reach.

''I didn't mean to do that, Alice; I didn't mean to do
that!" said he, dropping to his knees before her as if struck
down by a stunning blow. He bowed his head in contrite
humiliation.

" I forgot where I was, Alice ; I forgot ! "

There was no displeasure in her face as she stood panting
before the barred door, her hands to her heaving breast,
her head thrown back. Her lips were parted; there was a
light of exaltation in her eyes, as of one who has felt tlu
benediction of a great and lasting joy. She put her hand
through I lie liars again, and touched his bowed head.

"Don't do that, Joe," said she.

The sheriff's key sounded in the lock of the corridor gate.

"Time's up," he called.

"All right ; I'm coming," Alice returned.

Joe stood, weak and trembling. lie felt as if he had, in

Until the Day Break 225

the heat of some great passion, rashly risked life, and more
than life; that he had only now dragged his battered body
back to the narrow, precarious ledge from which he had
leaped, and that safety was not his.

" I must go now," said she, soft and low and in steady
voice. " Good-bye."

She gave him her hand, and he clung to it like a nestling
fastening upon the last branch interposing between it and
destruction.

" I forgot where I was," said he weakly, his shaken mind
incapable of comprehending things as they were, his abase
ment over the breach that he had committed being so pro
found. She withdrew her hand. When it was gone out of
his, he remembered how warm it was with the tide of her
3roung body, and how soft for his own work-roughened fingers
to meet and enfold.

" I must go now," said she again. Her feet sounded ID
the corridor as she ran away. A little way along she
stopped. She was beyond his sight, but her voice sounded
near him when she called back " Good-bye ! "

She had not gone in anger nor displeasure, thought he,
getting hand of his confused senses after a while, standing
as she had left him, the flowers in his hand. Strangely exulting,
strangely thrilling, mounting a moment like an eagle, plunging
down now like a stone, Joe walked his cell.

What had he done, drawn on by that which he had read
in her eyes in that poignant moment! In jail, locked behind
a grated door of steel, he had taken her hand and drawn
her to him until the shock of the bars had called back his
manhood. He had taken advantage of her friendship and
sympathy.

Prison was no place for love; a man locked in jail charged
with a crime had no right to think of it. It was base of him,
and unworthy. Still — mounting again in a swift, delicious

226 The Bondboy

flight — it was sweet to know what her eyes had told him,
sweeter to rest assured that she had not left him in scorn.
Down again, a falling clod. Unless he had misinterpreted
them in the ignorance of his untutored heart. Yet, that is
a language that needs no lexicon, he knew.

Who is so simple, indeed, as to be unaware of that? How
different this passion from that which Ollie's uncovered
bosom had stirred; how he burned with shame at the memory
of that day !

Up and down he strode the morning through, his long,
thin legs now spare in his boot-tops, his wide, bony shoulders
sharp through his coat. The strong light fell on his gaunt
face as he turned toward the window ; shadows magnified its
hollows when he turned toward the door. Now that the1
panic of it had left him, the sweetness of it remained.

How soft her hand was, how her yielding body swayed
in his arm! How delicious her breath was on his face; how
near her eyes, speaking to him, and her lips ; how near her
parted, warm, red lips !

He took up the Book, and turned with trembling hands to
a place that he remembered well. There was something that
he had read, not feeling, not understanding, words of which
came back to him now. The Songs of Songs, Which is
Solomon's.

Ah, the Song of Songs ! The music of it now was written in
his heart. It was not the song in glorification and exaltation
of the church that the translators had captioncd it ; not a
song full of earthly symbols meant to represent spiritual
passions. Joe had read it, time and again, in that appli
cation, and it had fallen flavorless upon his understanding.
No ; it was the song of a strong man to the woman whom he
loved.

And the music of it, old but ever new in its human appeal,
now was written in his heart.

Until the Day Break 227

Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely. Thou
art all fair, my love; there is no spot in. thee. . . . Until the day
break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved ....

Ah, until the day break !

In his rapt exaltation the boy's face beamed as he strode
swiftly the length of his cell. It would not be long until day
break now. The judge would understand him, and would
not press a man to tell what he had delicate reasons for con
cealing, Avhen the concealment could bring harm to nobody,
but boundless good to one weak creature who must wither
otherwise in the blaze of shame.

He remembered the strong face and the long iron-gray
hair of Judge Maxwell ; only a little while ago Joe had given
him some apples which he had stopped to admire as he drove
past Isom's orchard in his sagging, mud-splashed, old buggy.
He wras a good man ; the uprightness of his life spoke from his
face. Judge Maxwell was a man to understand.

Poor Ollie ; poor weak, shrinking Ollie ! Her frightened
eyes glowed hot in his memory of the day of the inquest,
carrying to him their appeal. Poor, mistaken, unguided
Ollie ! He would protect her to the last, as he had done at
the beginning, and trust and hope that the judge, and Alice,
and the colonel, and the whole world, would understand in
due and proper time.

CHAPTER XIV

DESERTED

JOHN OWEXS, the surviving witness to Isom Chase's will,
spent his dreary days at the poorhouse whittling long
chains of interlocking rings, and fantastic creatures such as
the human eye never beheld in nature, out of soft pine-wood.
He had taken up that diversion shortly after the last of his
afflictions, blindness, fell upon him and, as white pine was
cheap, the superintendent of the institution indulged him
without stint.

Uncle John, as he was called long years before the hard-
riding world threw him, was a preacher back in the days of
his youth, middling manhood and prosperity. lie had ridden
the country in the Campbellite faith, bringing hundreds into
the fold, with a voice as big as a bull's, and a long beard,
which he wore buttoned under his vest in winter. And now
in his spccchlcssncss, darkness, and silence, he still preached
in his wav, carving out the beast with seven heads and ten
horns, and female figures of hideous mien, the signification of
which nobodv rightly knew.

Uncle John had a little slate upon which he wrote his
wants, but nobody had discovered any way of communicating
with him save by taking his hand and guiding it to the object
for which he had asked. For a long time he had written the
one word "Paint" on his slate. That was the beginning of
his use of it, when one word was all that he could get on a
side of it at a time. After his fingers had become sensitive
through his new art of whittling and feeling, he improved
his writing, until he made it plain that he wanted paint to
adorn his carved figures, so they could be sold.

228

Deserted 229

It was the hope of the poor old soul that he could whittle
himself out of the poorhousc, and live free and independent
upon the grotesque productions of his knife, if they would
give him paint to make them attractive, and thus get a start.
He did not know how fantastic and ridiculous they were,
having only his own touch to guide him to judgment of their
merits.

Perhaps he was no less reasonable in this belief than certain
painters, musicians, and writers, who place their own blind
value upon the craft of their hands and brains, and will not
set them aside for any jury that the world can impanel.

Uncle John never came to realize his hopes of freedom, any
more than he ever came to realize the usclessness of paint for
his angels when he had no eyes for applying it. He whittled
on, in melancholy dejection, ring upon ring in his endless
chains of rings, forging in bitter irony the emblems of bond
age, when his old heart so longed to be free.

It was a bright day in the life of Uncle John Owens, then,
when Ollie's lawyer called at the poorhouse and placed under
his hands some slender slips of cardboard bearing raised
letters, the A B C of his age.

His bearded old face shone like a window in which a light
has been struck as his fluttering fingers ran over the letters.
He fumbled excitedly for his slate which hung about his neck,
and his hand trembled as he wrote :

" More — book — more."

It had been an experiment, the lawyer having doubted
whether Uncle John's untrained fingers, dulled by age, could
pick out the letters, large as they were. He had nothing
more to offer, therefore, and no way of answering the appeal.
But that night an order for the New Testament in raised
characters for the blind went out from Shelbyville.

Judge Little was making no progress in establishing the
will. Nobody had come forward in answer to his advertise-

230 The Bondboy

mcnts in the citv papers, claiming for himself the distinction
of being Isoin Chase's son. But the judge gave Ollie to
understand, in spite of his quiescence while he searched for
the heir, that the courts must settle the question. If there
were fees to be had out of that estate, Judge Little was the
man to get them.

Meantime, in his cell in the county jail, Joe Newbolt was
bearing the heaviest penance of his life. Alice had not come
again. Two visiting days had passed, and there would be
no more before the date of the trial, which was set for the
following Monday. But since that dun morning when she
had given him the mignonette, and he had drawn her unre
sisting body to the barrier of his prison door, she had visited
him no more.

Joe reproached himself for it. He accused himself of hav
ing offended beyond forgiveness. In the humiliation which
settled upon him, he wasted like water in the sun. The
mignonette which she had given him withered, dried; its per
fume vanished, its blossoms turned gray. She came no more.
What did it matter if they convicted him before the judge,
said he, now that Alice had condemned him in her heart.
He lamented that he had blundered into such deep offend
ing. His untutored heart had seen only the reflection of his
own desire in her eyes that day. She did not care for him.
It was only pity that he had distorted into love.

He had inquired about her, timidly, of the sheriff, who had
looked at him with a slow wink, then formed his mouth into
an egg-shaped aperture and held it so an exasperating while,
as if he meant to whistle. The sheriff's clownish behavior
nettled Joe, for he was at a loss to understand what he meant.

" I thought maybe she'd sent over some books," said Joe,
blushing like a hollyhock.

"Books!" said the sheriff, with a grunt.

" Yes, sir," Joe answered, respectfully.

Deserted 231

"Huh, she never sent no books," said the sheriff, turning
away.

After a little he came back and stood before Joe's door,
with his long legs far apart, studying the prisoner calcula-
tively, as a farmer stands when he estimates the weight of a
hog.

" Cree-mo-nee ! " said he.

He laughed then, much to Joe's confusion, and totally
beyond his comprehension. The sheriff left him with that.
From the passage his laugh came back.

The day was Friday ; Joe plucked up a little hope when he
heard the sheriff conducting somebody to the corridor gate.
It was Colonel Price, who had exercised his political influence
over the sheriff and induced him to set aside his new regula
tions for the day. The colonel made apologies to Joe for
what might seem his lack of interest in his welfare.

Joe inquired of him concerning Alice, with respectful
dignity. She was well, said the colonel, and asked to be
remembered. What else the colonel said on that occasion
Joe did not recall. All that he could think of was that Alice
had desired to be remembered.

What an ironical message to send him, thought Joe. If
she only had come herself, and given him the assurance with
her eyes that there was no stored censure, no burning
reproach; if she had come, and quieted the doubt, the
uncertainty, of his self-tortured soul. His case had become
secondary beside Alice. The colonel talked of it, but Joe
wondered if the mignonette in her garden was dead. The
colonel shook his head gravely when he went away from the
jail that day. It was plain that the boy was suffering with
that load on his mind and the uncertainty of the outcome
pressing upon him. He mentioned it to Alice.

" I think we'd better try to get him another lawyer," said
the colonel. "Hammer never will be equal to that job. It

232 The Bondboy

will be more the size of Judge Burns, or one of the old heads.
That boy's in a pickle, Alice, and a mighty tight one, at that."

"But he's innocent — you don't doubt that?" said she.

" Not for a minute," the colonel declared. " I guess I
should have been looking after him closer, but that picture
intervened between us. He's wearing away to a shadow,
chafing and pining there in jail, poor chap."

"Do you think he'll consent to your employing another
lawyer for him?" she asked, searching his face wistfully.

"I don't know; he's so set in the notion of loyalty to
Hammer — just as if anybody could hurt Hammer's feelings!
If the boy will consent to it, I'll hire Judge Burns at my
own expense."

" I don't suppose he will," sighed she.

"No, I reckon not, his notions are so high-flown," the
colonel admitted, with evident pride in the lofty bearing of
the widow's son.

" He's longing for a run over the hills," said she. " He
told me he was."

"A year of it in there would kill him," the colonel said.
"We must get him a lawyer who can disentangle him. I
never saw anybody go down like that boy has gone down in
the last month. It's like taking a wild Indian out of the
woods and putting him in a cage."

The colonel put aside the corn picture for the day, and
went out to confer with Judge Burns, a local lawyer who had
gained a wide reputation in the defense of criminal cases.
He was a doubly troubled man when he returned home that
evening, for Joe had been firm in his refusal either to dismiss
Hammer or admit another to his defense. In the library he
had found Alice, downcast and gloomy, on the margin of tears.

" Why, honey, you mustn't mope around this way," he
remonstrated gently. "What is it — what's gone wrong with
mv little manager?"

Deserted 233

She raised up from huddling her head against her arms on
the table, pushed her fallen hair back from her eyes and
gave him a wan smile.

"I just felt so lonely and depressed somehow," said she,
placing her hand on his where it lay on the table. "Never
mind me, for I'll be all right. What did he say? "

"Judge Burns?"

"Joe."

The colonel drew a chair near and sat down, flinging out
his hand with impatient gesture.

" I can't do anything with him," said he. " He says one
lawyer will do as well as another, and Hammer's doing all
that can be done. ' They'll believe me or they'll not believe'
me, colonel, and that's all there is to it,' says he, ' and the
best lawyer in the world can't change that.' And I don't
know but he's right, too," the colonel sighed. " He's got
to come out with that story, every word of it, or there'll
never be a jury picked in the whole State of Missouri that'll
take any stock in his testimony."

" It will be a terrible thing for his mother if they don't
believe him," said she.

" We'll do all that he'll allow us to do for him, we can't
do any more. It's a gloomy outlook, a gloomy case all
through. It was a bad piece of business when that moun
tain woman bound him out to old Isom Chase, to take his
kicks and curses and live on starvation rations. He's the
last boy in the world that you'd conceive of being bound
out; he don't fit the case at all."

" No, he doesn't," said she, reflectively.

" But don't let the melancholy thing settle on you and
disturb you, child. He'll get out of it — or he'll not — one
way or the other, I reckon. It isn't a thing for you to
take to heart and worry over. I never should have taken
you to that gloomy old jail to see him, at all."

234 The Bondboij

"I can't forget him there — I'll always see him there!'*
she shuddered. "lie's above them all — they'll never under
stand him, never in this world!"

She got up, her hair hanging upon her shoulders, and left
him abrupt Iv, as if she had discovered something that lay in
her heart. Colonel Price sat looking after her, his back very
straight, his hand upon his knee.

"Well!" said he. Then, after a long ruminative spell:
"Well!"

That same hour Hammer was laboring with his client in
the jail, as he had labored fruitlessly before, in an endeavor
to induce him to impart to him the thing that he had con
cealed at the coroner's inquest into Isom Chase's death.
Hammer assured him that it would not pass beyond him
in case that it had no value in establishing his innocence.

"Mr. Hammer, sir," said Joe, with unbending dignity and
firmness, " if the information you ask of me was mine to give,
freely and honorably, I'd give it. You can see that. Maybe
something will turn up between now and Monday that will
make a change, but if not, you'll have to do the best you
can for me the way it stands. Maybe I oughtn't expect you
to go into the court and defend me, seeing that I can't help
you any more than I'm doing. If you feel that you'd better
drop out of the case, you're free to do it, without any hard
feelings on my part, sir."

Hammer had no intention of dropping the case, hopeless as
he felt the defense to be. Even defeat would be glorious, and
loss profitable, for his connection with the defense would
sound his name from one end of the state to the other.

" I wouldn't desert you in the hour of your need, Joe, for
anything they could name," said Hammer, with significant
suggestion.

His manner, more than his words, carried the impression
that they had named sums, recognizing in him an insuperable

Deserted 235

barrier to the state's case, but that he had put his tempters
aside with high-born scorn.

" Thank you," said Joe.

" But if Missis Chase was mixed up in it any way, I want
you to tell me, Joe," he pressed.

Joe said nothing. He looked as stiff and hard as one of
the iron hitching-posts in front of the court-house, thought
Hammer, the side of his face turned to the lawyer, who
measured it with quick eyes.

"Was she, Joe?" whispered Hammer, leaning forward, his
face close to the bars.

" The coroner asked me that," replied Joe, harshly.

This unyielding quality of his client was baffling to Ham
mer, who was of the opinion that a good fatherly kick might
break the crust of his reserve. Hammer had guessed the
answer according to his own thick reasoning, and not very
pellucid morals.

" Well, if you take the stand, Joe, they'll make you tell it
then," Hammer warned him. " You'd better tell me in ad
vance, so I can advise you how much to say."

" I'll have to get on somehow without your advice, thank
you sir, Mr. Hammer, when it comes to how much to say,"
said Joe.

" There's not many laAvyers — and I'll tell you that right
now in a perfectly plain and friendly way — that'd go ahead
with your case under the conditions," said Hammer. "But
as I told you, I'll stick to you and see you through. I wash
my hands of any blame for the case, Joe, if it don't turn
out exactly the way you expect."

Joe saw him leave without regret, for Hammer's insistence
seemed to him inexcusably vulgar. All men could not be
like him, reflected Joe, his hope leaping forward to Judge
Maxwell, whom he must soon confront.

Joe tossed the night through with his longing for Alice,

16

236 The Bondboy

which gnawed him like hunger and would not yield to sleep,
for in Ins dreams his heart went out after her; he heard
her voice caressing his name. He woke with the feeling that
he must put the thought of Alice away from him, and frame
in his mind what he should say when it came his turn to
stand before Judge Maxwell and tell his story. If by some
hinted thing, some shade of speech, some qualification which
a gentleman would grasp and understand, lie might convey
his reason to the judge, he felt that he must come clear.

He pondered it a long time, and the face of the judge rose
before him, and the eyes were brown and the hair in soft
wavelets above a white forehead, and Alice stood in judgment
over him. So it always ended; it was before Alice that he
must plead and justify himself. She was his judge, his jury,
and his world.

It was mid-afternoon when Mrs. Newbolt arrived for her
last visit before the trial. She came down to his door in her*
somber dress, tall, bony and severe, thinner of face herself
than she had been before, her eyes bright with the affection
for her boy which her tongue never put into words. Her
shoes were muddy, and the hem of her skirt draggled, for,
high as she had held it in her heavy tramp, it had become
splashed by the pools in the soft highway.

" Mother, you shouldn't have come today over the bad
roads," said Joe with affectionate reproof.

"Lands, what's a little mud!" said she, putting down a
small bundle which she bore. "Well, it'll be fro/e up by
tomorrow, I reckon, it's turnin' sharp and cold."

She looked at Joe anxiously, every shadow in his worn
face carving its counterpart in her heart. There was no
smile of gladness on her lips, for smiles had been so long
apart from her life that the nerves which commanded them
had grown stiff and hard.

"Yes," said Joe, taking up her last words, "winter will

Deserted 237

be here in a little while now. I'll be out then, Mother, to
lay in wood for you. It won't be long now."

" Lord bless you, son ! " said she, the words catching in her
throat, tears rising to her eyes and standing so heavy that
she must wipe them away.

" It will all be settled next week," Joe told her confidently.

" I hope they won't put it off no more," said she wearily.

" No ; Hammer says they're sure to go ahead this time."

" Ollie drove over yesterday evening and brought your
things from Isom's," said she, lifting the bundle from the
floor, forcing it to him between the bars. " I brought you a
couple of clean shirts, for I knew you'd want one for
tomorrow."

" Yes, Mother, I'm glad you brought them," said Joe.

" Ollie, she said she never would make you put in the rest
of your time there if she had anything to say about it. But
she said if Judge Little got them letters of administration he
was after she expected he'd try to hold us to it, from what
he said."

" No matter, Mother."

"And Ollie said if she ever did come into Isom's property
she'd make us a deed to our place."

Mrs. Newbolt's face bore a little gleam of hope when she
told him this. Joe looked at her kindly.

" She could afford to, Mother," said he, " it was paid for
in interest on that loan to Isom."

" But Isom, he never would 'a' give in to that," said she.
" Your pap he paid twelve per cent interest on that loan for
sixteen years."

" I figured it all up, Mother," said he.

There was nothing for her to sit on in the corridor ; she
stood holding to the bars to take some of the weight from her
tired feet.

" I don't want to hurry you off, Mother," said Joe, " but

238 The Bondboy

I hate to see you standing there all tired out. If the sheriff
was a gentleman he'd fetch you a chair. I don't suppose
therc'd he any use in asking him."

" Never mind, Joe, it takes more than a little walk like
that to play me out."

'"You'd better stop in at Colonel Price's and rest a while
before you start back," he suggested.

" Maybe I will," said she.

She plunged her hand into the black draw-string bag which
she carried on her arm, rummaging among its contents.

"That little rambo tree you planted a couple of years ago
had two apples on it," she told him, "but I never noticed
'em all summer, the leaves was so thick and it was such a
little feller, anyhow."

"It is a little one to begin bearing," said Joe, with a
boy's interest in a thing that he has done with his own hand
turning out to be something.

" Yes ; and I aimed to leave them on the tree till you could
see them, but the hard wind yesterday shook 'em off. Here
thev are, I've fetched 'cm to you, son."

Joe took the apples, the recollection of the high hopes
which he had centered around that little apple-tree when he
planted it coming back to him like a scented wind at dawn.
He had planned to make that tree the nucleus of an or
chard, which was to grow and spread until it covered the old
home place, the fields adjoining, and lifted the curse of
poverty from the Newbolt name. It had been a boyish plan
which his bondage to Isom Chase had set back.

He had not given it up for a day while he labored in Chase's
fields. When he became his own man he always intended to
take it up and put it through. Now, there in his hand, was
the first fruit of his big intention, and in that moment Joe
reviewed his old pleasant dream.

lie saw again as he had pictured it before, to the relief of

Deserted 239

many a long, hot day in Isom's fields, his thousand trees upon
the hills, the laden wagons rolling to the station with his
barrels of fruit, some of it to go to far lands across the
sea. He saw again the stately house with its white columns
and deep porticoes, in the halls of which his fancy had
reveled many a happy hour, and he saw — the bars of his
stone cell and his mother's work-hardened hands clasping
them, while she looked at him with the pain of her sad heart
speaking from her eyes. A heavy tear rolled down his hol
low cheek and fell upon the apples in his hand.

For the pain of prison he had not wept, nor for its shame.
The vexing circumstance of being misunderstood, the dread
threat of the future had not claimed a tear. But for a
dream which had sprung like a sweet flower in his young heart
and had passed away like a mist, he wept.

His mother knew nothing about that blasted dream ; the
gloom of his cell concealed his tears. He rubbed the fruit
along his coat sleeve, as if to make it shine, as a fruiterer
polishes the apples in his stall.

" All right, Mother, I'm glad you brought them," he said,
although there was no gladness in his voice.

" I planned to fetch you in some fried chicken today, too,"
said she, "but the pesky rooster I had under the tub got
away when I went to take him out. If you'd like some, Joe,
I'll come back tomorrow."

" No, no ; don't you tramp over here tomorrow, Mother,"
he admonished, " and don't bother about the chicken. I don't
seem to have any appetite any more. But you wait till I'm
out of here a day or two ; then you'll see me eat."

" Well, then I guess I'll be goin' on back, Joe ; and bright
and early Monday morning I'll be on hand at the court.
Maybe we'll be able to go home together that evenin', son."

" Hammer says it will take two or three days," Joe told
her, " but I don't see what they can do to make it string out

240 The Bondboy

that long. I could tell them all about it in ten minutes. So
we mustn't put our hopes too high on Monday, Mother."

"I'll beseech the Lord all day tomorrow, son, to open their
ears that they may hear," said she solemnly. " And when
the time comes to speak tell it all, Joe, tell it all ! "

" Yes, Mother, when the time comes," said he gently.

" Tell 'em all Isom said to }TOU, son," she charged.

" Don't you worry over that now, Mother."

She felt that her son drew away from her, in his haughty
manner of self-sufficiency, as he spoke. She sighed, shaking
her head sadly. " Well, I'll be rackin' off home," she said.

" If you stop at the colonel's to rest a while, Mother- — and
I wish you would, for you're all tired out — you might hand
this book back to Miss Price. She loaned it to me. Tell
her I read it long ago, and I'd have sent it back before now,
only I thought she might come after it herself some time."

His mother turned to him, a curious expression in her face.

''Don't she come any more, Joe?"

" She's been busy with other things, I guess," said he.

" Maybe," she allowed, with a feeling of resentment against
the book on account of its cold, unfriendly owner.

She had almost reached the corridor gate when Joe called
after her.

"No, don't tell her that," he requested. "Don't tell her
anything. Just hand it back, please, Mother."

" Whatever you say, Joe."

Joe heard the steel gate close after her and the sheriff's
voice loud above his mother's as they went toward the door.

Loyal as he was to his mother, the thought of her went
out with her, and in her place stood the slender figure of
youth, her lips "like a thread of scarlet." One day more
to wait for the event of his justification and vindication, or
at least the beginning of it, thought Joe.

Ah, if Alice onlv would come to lighten the interval!

CHAPTER XV

THE STATE VS. XEWBOLT

HE court-house at Shelbyville was a red brick structure

JL with long windows. From the joints of its walls the
mortar was falling. It lay all around the building in a girdle
of gray, like an encircling ant-hill, upon the green lawn.
Splendid sugar-maples grew all about the square, in the center
of which the court-house stood, and close around the building.

In a corner of the plaza, beneath the largest and oldest
of these spreading trees, stood a rotting block of wood, a
section of a giant tree-trunk, around which centered many
of the traditions of the place. It was the block upon which
negro slaves had been auctioned in the fine old days before
the war.

There was a bench beside the approach to the main door,
made from one of the logs of the original court-house, built
in that square more than sixty years before the day that Joe
Newbolt stood to answer for the murder of Isorn Chase.
The old men of the place sat there in the summer days,
whittling and chewing tobncco and living over again the
stirring incidents of their picturesque past. Their mighty
initials were cut in the tough wood of the bench, to endure
long after them and recall memories of the hands which
carved them so strong and deep.

Within the court-house itself all was very much like it had
had been at the beginning. The court-room was furnished
with benches, the judge sat behind a solemn walnut desk.
The woodwork of the room was thick with many layers of
paint, the last one of them grim and blistered now, scratched
by stout finger-nails and prying knife-blades. The stairway

241

242 The Bomlboy

leading from the first floor ascended in a broad sweep, with a
turn half-way to the top.

The wall along this stairway was battered and broken,
as if the heels of reluctant persons, dragged hither for justice
to be pronounced upon them, had kicked it in protest as they
passed. It was as solemn and gloomy a stairway as ever
was seen in a temple of the law. Many had gone up it in their
generation in hope, to descend it in despair. Its treads were
worn to splinters; its balustrade was hacked by the knives
of generations of loiterers. There was no window in the wall
giving upon it ; darkness hung over its first landing on the
brightest day. The just and the unjust alike were shrouded
in its gloomy penumbra as they passed. It was the solemn
warder at the gate, which seemed to cast a taint over all who
came, and fasten a cloud upon them which they must stand in
the white light of justice to purge away.

When the civil war began, the Hag of the Union was taken
down from the cupola of the court-house. In all the years
that had passed since its close, the flag never had been hoisted
to its place of honor again. That event was not to take
place, indeed, until twenty years or more after the death of
Isom Chase, when the third court-house was built, and the
old generation had passed awav mainly, and those who
remained of it had forgotten. But that incident is an
incursion into matters which do not concern this tale.

Monday morning came on dull and cloudy. Shelby ville
itself was scarcely astir, its breakfast fires no more than
kindled, when the wagons of farmers and the straggling
troops of horsemen from far-lying districts began to come
in and seek hitching-room around the court-house square. It
looked very early in the day as if there was going to be an
unusual crowd for the unusual event of a trial for murder.

Isom Chase had been widely known. His unsavory repu
tation had spread wider than the sound of the best deeds of

The State vs. Newbolt 243

the worthiest man in the county. It was not so much on
account of the notoriety of the old man, which had not died
with him, as the mystery in the manner of his death, that
people were anxious to attend the trial.

It was not known whether Joe Newbolt was to take the
witness-stand in his own behalf. It rested with him and his
lawyer to settle that ; under the law he could not be forced
to testify. The transcript of his testimony at the inquest
was ready at the prosecutor's hand. Joe would be confronted
with that, and, if there was a spark of spunk in him, people
said, he would rise up and stand by it. And then, once Sam
Lucas got him in the witness-chair, it would be all day with
his evasions and concealments.

Both sides had made elaborate preparations for the trial.
The state had summoned forty witnesses ; Hammer's list
was half as long. It was a question in the public speculation
what either side expected to prove or disprove with this train
of people. Certainly, Hammer expected to prove very little.
His chief aim was to consume as much time before the jury as
possible, and disport himself in the public eye as long as he
could drag out an excuse. His witnesses were all from among
the old settlers in the Xewbolt neighborhood over in Sni, who
had the family record from the date of the Kentucky hegira.
They were summoned for the purpose of sustaining and
adding color to the picture which Hammer intended to draw
of his client's well-known honesty and clean past.

Fully an hour before Judge Maxwell arrived to open court,
the benches down toward the front were full. This vantage
ground had been preempted mainly by the old men whose
hearing was growing dim. They sat there with their old
hands, as brown as blackberry roots, clasped over their
sticks and umbrellas, their peaked old chins up, their eyes
alert. Here and there among them sat an ancient dame,
shawled and kerchiefed, for the day was chill ; and from them

244 The Bondboif

all there rose the scent of dry tobacco-leaves, and out of their
midst there sounded the rustling of paper-bags and the
cracking of peanut-shells.

"Gosh in' granny!" said Captain Bill Taylor, deputy
sheriff, as he stood a moment after placing a pitcher of water
and a glass on the bench, ready for Judge Maxwell's hand.
"They're here from Necessity to Tribulation!"

Of course the captain was stretching the territory rep
resented bv that gathering somewhat, for those two historic
post ofliees lay farther away from Shelbyville than the
average inhabitant of that country ever journeyed in his
life. But there was no denying that they had come from
surprising distances.

There was I'ncle Posen Spratt, from Little Sugar Creek,
with his steer's-horn ear trumpet ; and there were Nick Proc
tor and his wife, July, from the hills beyond Destruction,
seventeen miles over a road that pitched from end to end
when it didn't slant from side to side, and took a shag-barked,
sharp-shinned, cross-eyed wind-splitter to travel. There sat
old Bev Munday, from Blue Cut, who hadn't been that far
awav from home since Jesse James got after him, with his
old brown hat on his head; and it was two to one in the
opinion of everybody that he'd keep it there till the sheriff
ordered him to lift it oti'. Hiram Lee, from Sni-a-bar Town
ship was over there in the corner where he could slant up and
spit out of the window, and there was California Colboth, as
big around the waist as a cow. right behind him. She had
came over in her dish-wheeled buggy from (ireen Valley, and
she was staying with her married son, who worked on tin-
railroad and lived in that little pink-and-bluc house behind
the water-tank.

Oh, you could stand there — said Captain Taylor — and
name all the old settlers for twenty-seven mile in a ring! But
the captain hadn't the time, even if he was taken with the

The State vs. Newbolt 245

inclination, for the townspeople began to come, and it was
his duty to stand at the door and shut off the stream when
all the benches were full.

That was Judge Maxwell's order ; nobody was to be allowed
to stand around the walls or in the aisles and jig and shuffle
and kick up a disturbance just when the lawyers or witnesses
might be saying something that the captain would be very
anxious to hear. The captain indorsed the judge's mandate,
and sustained his judgment with internal warmth.

General Bryant and Colonel Moss Punton came early, and
sat opposite each other in the middle of the aisle, each on
the end of a bench, where they could look across and exchange
opinions, yet escape being crowded by the mongrel stock
which was sure to come pouring in soon. A good many
unnoted sons of distinguished fathers arrived in pairs and
troops, with perfumery on their neckties and chewing-gum
in their teeth ; and their sisters, for the greater part as
lovely as they were knotty, warty, pimply, and weak-
shanked, came after them in churchlike decorum and settled
down on the benches like so many light-winged birds. But
not without a great many questioning glances and shy explor
ations around them, not certain that this thing was proper
and admissible, it being such a mixed and dry-tobacco
atmosphere. Seeing mothers here, grandfathers there, uncles
and aunts, cousins and neighbors everywhere, they settled
down, assured, to enjoy the day.

It was a delightfully horrid thing to be tried for murder,
they said, even though one was obscure and nobody, a bound
servant in the fields of the man whom he had slain. Especially
if one came off clear.

Then Hammer arrived with three law-books under his arm.
He was all sleek and shining, perfumed to the last possible
drop. His alpaca coat had been replaced by a longer one
of broadcloth, his black necktie surely was as dignified and

246 The Bondboy

somberly learned of droop as Judge Burns', or Judge Little's,
or Attorney Pickell's, who got Perry Xorris off for stealing
old man Purvis' cow.

Mrs. Xewbolt was there already, awaiting him at the
railing which divided the lawyers from the lawed, lawing,
and, in some cases, outlawed. She was so unobtrusive in her
rusty black dress, which looked as if it were made of storm-
streaked umbrellas, that nobody had noticed her.

X'ow, when they saw her stand and shake hands with
Hammer, and saw Hammer obsequiously but conspicuously
conduct her to a chair within the sacred precincts of the bar,
there were whisperings and straightcnings of backs, and a
stirring of feet with that concrete action which belongs pecu
liarly to a waiting, expectant crowd, but is impossible to
segregate or individually deh'ne.

Judge Maxwell opened the door of his chamber, which had
stood tall and dark and solemnly closed all morning just
a little way behind the bench, and took his place. At the
same moment the sheriff, doubtless timing himself to the
smooth-working order, came in from the witness-room, open
ing from the court-room at the judge's right hand, with the
prisoner.

Joe hesitated a little as the sheriff closed the door behind
them, his hand on the prisoner's shoulder, as if uncertain of
what was next required of him. The sheriff pushed him for
ward with commanding gesture toward the table at which
Hammer stood, and Joe proceeded to cross the room in the
fire of a thousand eyes.

It seemed to him that the sheriff might have made the
entrance less spectacular, that he could have brought him
sooner, or another way. That was like leading him across
a stage, with the audience all in place, waiting the event.
But Joe strode along ahead of the sheriff with his head up,
his long, shaggy hair smoothed into some semblance of order,

The State vs. Newbolt 247

his spare garments short and outgrown upon his bony frame.
His arms were ignominiously bound in the sheriff's handcuffs,
linked together by half a foot of dangling chain.

That stirring sigh of mingled whispers and deep-drawn
breaths ran over the room again; here and there someone
half rose for a better look. The dim-eyed old men leaned
forward to see what was coming next ; Uncle Posen Spratt put
up his steer's-horn trumpet as if to blow the blast of judg
ment out of his ear.

Joe sat in the chair which Hammer indicated; the sheriff
released one hand from the manacles and locked the other
to the arm of the chair. Then Captain Taylor closed the
door, himself on the outside of it, and walked down to the
front steps of the court-house with slow and stately tread.
There he lifted his right hand, as if to command the attention
of the world, and pronounced in loud voice this formula :

"Oy's, oy's, oy's! The hon'r'bl' circuit court of the
/m/wteenth judicial de-strict is now in session, pursu'nt t'
'j'urnm'nt!"

Captain Taylor turned about as the last word went echoing
against the First National Bank, and walked slowly up the
stairs. He opened the court-room door and closed it ; he
placed his back against it, and folded his arms upon his
breast, his eyes fixed upon a stain on the wall.

Judge Maxwell took up some papers from the desk, and
spread one of them before him.

"In the matter of Case No. 79, State vs. Newbolt.
Gentlemen, are you ready for trial ? "

The judge spoke in low and confidential voice, meant for
the attorneys at the bar only. It scarcely carried to the
back of the room, filled with the sound-killing vapors from five
hundred mouths, and many of the old men in the front seats
failed to catch it, even though they cupped their hands
behind their ears.

248 The Bondboy

Sam Lucas, prosecuting attorney, rose.

Slight and pale, with a thin chest and a stoop forward, he
was distinguished by the sharp eyes beside his flat-bridged
nose, so flattened out, it seemed, by some old blow, that they
could almost communicate with each other across it. His
light, loose hair was very long; when he warmed up in speak
ing he shook it until it tumbled about his eyes. Then it,
was his habit to sweep it back with the palm of his hand
in a long, swinging movement of the arm. It was a most
expressive gesture ; it seemed as if by it he rowed himself
back into the placid waters of reasoning. Now, as he stood
before Judge Maxwell, he swept his palm over his forelock,
although it lay snug and unruffled in its place.

" Your honor, the state is ready," said he, and remained
standing.

Hammer pushed his books along the table, shuffled his
papers, and rose ponderously. lie thrust his right, hand
into the bosom of his coat and leaned slightly against the
left in an attitude of scholarly preparedness.

" Your honor, the defense is ready," he announced.

CHAPTER XVI

"SHE COMETH NOT," HE SAID

JOE, his face as white as some plant that has sprung in
a dungeon, bent his head toward his mother, and placed
his free hand on hers where it lay on the arm of her chair.

"It will soon be over with now, Mother," he encouraged,
with the hope in his heart that it would, indeed, be so.

With an underling in his place at the door, Captain Taylor
advanced to take charge of the marshaling of the jury panel.
There ensued a great bustling and tramping as the clerk
called off the names of those drawn.

While this was proceeding, Joe cast his eyes about the
room, animated by a double hope: that Alice would be there
to hear him tell his stoi\y ; that Morgan had come and
was in waiting to supply the facts which honor sealed upon
his own tongue. He could sec only the first few rows of
benches with the certainty of individual identification ; they
were filled with strangers. Beyond them it was conglomerate,
that fused and merged thing which seemed a thousand faces,
yet one; that blended and commingled mass which we call the
public. Out of the mass Joe Newbolt could not sift the lean,
shrewd face of Curtis Morgan, nor glean from it the brown
hair of Alice Price.

The discovery that Alice was not there smote him with a
feeling of sudden hopelessness and abandonment ; the re
proaches which he had kindled against himself in his solitary
days in jail rose up in redoubled torture. He blamed the
rashness of an unreasoning moment in which he had forgotten
time and circumstance. Her interest was gone from him

249

250 The Bondboy

now, where, if he had waited for vindication, he might have
won her heart.

But it was a dream, at the best, he confessed, turning away
from his hungry search of the crowd, his head drooping for
ward in dejection. What did it matter for the world's final
exculpation, if Alice were not there to hear ?

His mother nodded to somebody, and touched his hand.
Ollie it was, whom she greeted. She was seated near at hand,
beside a fat woman with a red and greasy face, whose air of
protection and large interest proclaimed her a relative. Joe
thought that she filled pretty well the bill that Ollie had mad.'
out of her mother, on that day when she had scorned her
for having urged her into marriage with Isom.

Ollie was very white in her black mourning dress, and
thinner of features than when he had seen, her last. She
smiled, and nodded to him, with an air of timid questioning,
as if doubtful whether he had expected it, and uncertain how
it would be received. Joe bowed his head, respectfully.

What a wavside flower she seemed, thought he; how com
mon beside Alice! Yet, she had been bright and refreshing
in the dustv war where he had found her. He wondered
why she was not within the rail also, near Hammer, if she was
for him; or near the prosecutor, if she was on the other side.

He was not alone in this speculation. Many others won
dered over that point also. It was the public expectation
that she naturally would assist the state in the punishment
of her husband's slayer; but Sam Lucas was not paying the
slightest attention to her, and it was not known whether he
even had summoned her as a witness.

And now Captain Tavlor began to create a fresh commo
tion bv clearing the spectators from the first row of benches
to make seats for the jury panel. .Judge Maxwell was
waiting the restoration of order, leaning back in his chair.
Joe scanned his face.

"She Cometh Not" He Said 251

Judge Maxwell was tall and large of frame, from which the
study and abstemiousness of his life had worn all superfluous
flesh. His face, cleanly shaved, was expressive of the schol
arly attainments which made his decisions a national
standard. The judge's eyes were bushed over with great,
gray brows, the one forbidding cast in his countenance ; they
looked out upon those who came for judgment before him
through a pair of spring-clamp spectacles which seemed to
ride precariously upon his large, bony nose. The glasses
were tied to a slender black braid, which he wore looped about
his neck.

His hair was long, iron-gray, and thick ; he wore it brushed
straight back from his brow, without a parting or a break.
It lay in place so smoothly and persistently through all the
labor of his long days, that strangers were sometimes misled
into the belief that it was not his own. This peculiar fashion
of dressing his hair, taken with the length and leanness of
his jaw, gave the judge a cast of aquiline severeness which
his gray eyes belied when they beamed over the tops of his
glasses at floundering \-oung counsel or timid witness.

Yet they could shoot darts of fire, as many a rash lawyer
who had fallen under their censure could bear witness. At
.such moments the judge had a peculiar habit of drawing
up his long back and seemingly to distend himself with all
the dignity which his cumulative years and honors had
endured, and of bowing his neck to make the focus of his
eyes more direct as he peered above his rimless glasses. He
did not find it necessary to reprimand an attorney often,
never more than once, but these occasions never were
forgotten. In his twenty-five years' service on the bench, he
never had been reversed.

Joe felt a revival of hope again under the influence of these
preparations for the trial. Perhaps Alice was there, some
where among the people back in the room, he thought. And

17

252 The Bondboy

the colonel, also, and maybe Morgan. Who could tell? There
was no use in abandoning hope when he was just where he
could see a little daylight.

Joe sat up again, and lifted his head with new confidence.
His mother sat beside him, watching everything with a sharp
ness which seemed especially bent on seeing that Joe was
given all his rights, and that nothing was omitted nor
slighted that might count in his favor.

She watched Hammer, and Captain Taylor; she measured
Sam Lucas, the prosecutor, and she weighed the judge.
When Hammer did something that pleased her, she nodded ;
when the prosecutor interposed, or seemed to be blocking the
progress of the case, she shook her head in severe censure.

And now Joe came in for his first taste of the musty and
ancient savor of the law. He had hoped that morning to
walk away free at evening, or at least to have met the worst
that was to come, chancing it that Morgan failed to appear
and give him a hand. But he saw the hours waste away
with the most exasperating fiddling, fussing and scratching
over unprofitable straw.

What Hammer desired in a juryman, the prosecuting
attorney was hotly against, and what pleased the state's
attorney seemed to give Hammer a spasmodic chill. Instead
of selecting twelve intelligent men, the most intelligent of the
sixty empaneled, both Hammer and the prosecutor seemed
determined to choose the most dense.

That day's sweating labor resulted in the selection of
four jurymen. Hammer seemed cheered. He said he had
expected to exhaust the panel and get no more than two, at
the best. Now it seemed as if they might secure the full
complement without drawing another panel, and that would
save them at least four days. That must have been an
exceedingly lucky haul of empty heads, indeed.

Joe could not see any reason for elation. The prospect

"She Cometh Not," He Said 253

of freedom — or the worst — had withdrawn so far that
there was not even a pin-point of daylight in the gloom.
Alice had not shown her face. If she had come at all, she
had withheld herself from his hungry eyes. His heart was
as bleak that night as the mind of the densest juryman
agreed upon between Hammer and the attorney for the state.

Next day, to the surprise of everybody, the jury was
completed. And then there followed, on the succeeding
morning, a recital by the prosecuting attorney of what he
proposed and expected to prove in substantiation of the
charge that Joe Newbolt had shot and killed Isom Chase ;
and Hammer's no shorter statement of what he was prepared
to show to the contrary.

Owing to the unprecedented interest, and the large number
of people who had driven in from the country, Judge Maxwell
unbent from his hard conditions on that day. He instructed
Captain Taylor to admit spectators to standing-room along
the walls, but to keep the aisles between the benches clear.

This concession provided for at least a hundred more on
lookers and listeners, who stood forgetful of any ache in
their shanks throughout the long and dragging proceedings
well satisfied, believing that the coming sensations would
repay them for any pangs of inconvenience they might suffer.

It was on the afternoon of the third day of the trial that
Sol Greening, first witness for the state, was called.

Sol retailed again, in his gossipy way, and wTith immense
enjoyment of his importance, the story of the tragedy as he
had related it at the inquest. Sam Lucas gave him all the
rope he wanted, even led him into greater excursions than
Sol had planned. Round-about excursions, to be sure, and
inconsequential in effect, but they all led back to the tragic
picture of Joe Newbolt standing beside the dead body of
Isom Chase, his hat in his hand, as if he had been inter
rupted on the point of escape.

2.54 The Bondboy

Sol seemed n wonderfully acute man for the recollection
of details, but there was one tiling that had escaped his
memory. He said he did not remember whether, when he
knocked on the kitchen door, anybody told him to come in
or not. lie was of the opinion, to the best of his knowledge
and belief — the words being supplied by the prosecutor-
that he just, knocked, and stood there blowing a second or
two, like a horse that had been put to a hard run, and then
went in without being bidden. Sol believed that was the way
of it; he had no recollection of anybody telling him to come
in.

When it came Hammer's turn to question the witness, he
rose with an air of patronizing assurance. He called Sol bv
his first name, in easy familiarity, although he never had
spoken to him before that day. lie proceeded as if he in
tended to establish himself in the man's confidence bv gentle
handling, and in that manner cause him to confound, refute
and entangle himself bv admissions made in gratitude.

I Jut Sol was a suspicious customer. lie hesitated and he
hummed, backed and sidled, and didn't know anything more
than he had related. The bag of money which had been found
with Isom*s body had been introduced by the state for id^nti-
fication by Sol. Hammer took up the matter with a sudden
turn toward sharpness and belligerency.

'"You say that this is the same sack of money that was
there on the floor with Isom Chase's body when you entered
the room?" lie asked.

"That's it," nodded Sol.

"Tell this jury how you know it's the same one!" ordered
Hammer, in stern voice.

"Well, I seen it," said Sol.

"Oil, yes, you saw it. Well, did you go over to it and
make a mark on it so you'd know it again?"

"No, I never done that," admitted Sol.

"She Cometh Not" He Said 255

"Don't you know the banks are full of little sacks of
money like that? " Hammer wanted to know.

" I reckon maybe they air," Sol replied.

" And this one might be any one of a thousand like it,
mightn't it, Sol?"

" Well, I don't reckon it could. That's the one Isom had."

" Did you step over where the dead body was at and heft
it?"

" 'Course I never," said Sol.

" Did you open it and count the money in it, or tie a
string or something onto it so you'd know it when you saw
it again?"

"No, I never," said Sol sulkily.

" Then how do you know this is it? "

" I tell you I seen it," persisted Sol.

"Oh, you seen it!" repeated Hammer, sweeping the jury
a cunning look as if to apprise them that he had found
out just what he wanted to know, and that upon that simple
admission he was about to turn the villainy of Sol Greening
inside out for them to see with their own intelligent eyes.

" Yes, I said I seen it," maintained Sol, bristling up a little.

" Yes, I heard you say it, and now I want you to tell this
jury how you knoza!"

Hammer threw the last word into Sol's face with a slam
that made him jump. Sol turned red under the whiskers,
around the whiskers, and all over the uncovered part of him.
He shifted in his chair ; he swallowed.

"Well, I don't just know," said he.

"No, you don't — just — know!" sneered Hammer, glow
ing in oily triumph. He looked at the jury confidentially,
as on the footing of a shrewd man with his equally shrewd
audience.

Then he took up the old rifle, and Isom's bloody coat and
shirt, which were also there as exhibits, and dressed Sol down

2,56 The Bondboy

on all of them, working hard to create the impression in the
minds of the jurors that Sol Greening was a born liar, and
not to be depended on in the most trivial particular.

Hammer worked himself up into a sweat and emitted a
great deal of perfume of barberish — and barbarous —
character, and glanced around the court-room with triumph
in his eves and satisfaction at the corners of his mouth.

He came now to the uncertainty of Sol's memory on the
matter of being bidden to enter the kitchen when he knocked.
Sol had now passed from doubt to certaint}7. Come to think
it over, said he, nobody had said a word when he knocked
at that door. He remembered now that it was as still inside
the house as if everybody was away.

Mrs. Greening was standing against the wall, having that
moment returned to the room from ministering to her daugh
ter's baby. She held the infant in her arms, waiting Sol's
descent from the witness-chair so she might settle down in
her place without disturbing the proceedings. When she
heard her husband make this positive declaration, her mouth
fell open and her eyes widened in surprise.

" Why Sol," she spoke up reprovingly, " you told me
Joe-

It had taken the prosecuting attorney that long to glance
around and spring to his feet. There his voice, in a loud
appeal to the court for the protection of his sacred rights,
drowned that of mild Mrs. Greening. The judge rapped,
the sheriff rapped; Captain Taylor, from his post at the
door, echoed the authoritative sound.

Hammer abruptly ceased his questioning of Sol, after the
judge had spoken a few crisp words of admonishment, not
directed in particular at Mrs. Greening, but more to the
public at large, regarding the decorum of the court. Sam
Lucas thereupon took Sol in hand again, and drew him
on to replace his former doubtful statement by his later

"She Cometh Not" He Scad 257

conclusion. As Sol left the witness-chair Hammer smiled.
He handed Mrs. Greening's name to the clerk, and requested
a subpoena for her as a witness for the defense.

Sol's son Dan was the next witness, and Hammer put him
through a similar course of sprouts. Judge Maxwell allowed
Hammer to disport uncurbed until it became evident that, if
given his way, the barber-lawyer would drag the trial out
until Joe was well along in middle life. He then admonished
Hammer that there were bounds fixed for human existence,
and that the case must get on.

Hammer was a bit uppish and resentful. He stood on his
rights ; he invoked the sacred constitution ; he referred to the
revised statutes ; he put his hand into his coat and spread his
legs to make a memorable protest.

Judge Maxwell took him in hand very kindly and led
safely past the point of explosion with a smile of indulgence.
With that done, the state came to Constable Bill Frost and
his branching mustaches, which he had trimmed up and soaped
back quite handsomely.

To his own credit and the surprise of the lawyers who
were watching the case, Hammer made a great deal of the
point of Joe having gone to Frost, voluntarily and alone, to
summon him to the scene of the tragedy. Frost admitted
that he had believed Joe's story until Sol Greening had point
ed out to him the suspicious circumstances.

" So you have to have somebody else to do your thinkin'
for you, do you? " said Hammer. "Well, you're a fine officer
of the law and a credit to this state ! "

"I object!" said the prosecuting attorney, standing up in
his place, very red around the eyes.

The judge smiled, and the court-room tittered. The sheriff
looked back over his shoulder and rapped the table for order.

"Comment is unnecessary, Mr. Hammer," said the judge.
" Proceed with the case."

258 The Boudboii

And so that weary day passed in trivial questioning on
both sides, trivial bickerings, and waste of time, to the great
edifications of everybody but Joe and his mother, and
probably the judge. Ten of the state's forty witnesses were
disposed of, and Hammer was as moist as a jug of cold water
in a shock of wheat.

When the sheriff started to take Joe back to jail, the lad
stood for a moment searching the breaking-up and moving
assembly with longing eyes. All dav he had sat with his
back to the people, not having the heart to look around
with that shameful handcuff and chain binding his arm to
the chair. If Alice had been there, or Colonel Price, neither
had come forward to wisli him well.

There were Ollie and her mother, standing as they had
risen from their bench, waiting for the crowd ahead of them
to set in motion toward the door, and here and there a face
from his own neighborhood. But Alice was not among them.
She had withdrawn her friendship from him in his darkest
hour.

Neither had Morgan appeared to put his shoulder under
the hard-pressing load and relieve him of its weight. Day by
day it was growing heavier; but a little while remained until
it must crush out his hope forever. Certainly, there was a
way out without Morgan ; there was a way open to him
leading back into the freedom of the world, where he might
walk again with the sunlight on his face. A word would make
it clear.

But the sun would never strike again into his heart if he
should go back to it under that coward's reprieve, and Alice
— Alice would scorn his memory.

CHAPTER XVII

THE BLOW OF A FRIEND

)ROGRESS was swifter the next day. The prosecuting
attorney? apparently believing that he had made his case,
dismissed many of his remaining witnesses who had nothing
to testify to in fact. When he announced that the state
rested, there was a murmur and rustling in the room, and
audibly expressed wonderment over what the public thought
to be a grave blunder on Sam Lucas's part.

The state had not called the widow of Isom Chase to the
stand to give testimony against the man accused of her hus
band's murder. The public could not make it out. What,
did it mean ? Did the prosecutor hold her more of an
enemy than a friend to his efforts to convict the man whose
hand had made her a widow ? Whispers went around, grave
faces were drawn, wise heads wagged. Public charity for
Ollie began to falter.

"Him and that woman," men said, nodding toward Joe,
sitting pale and inscrutable beside his blustering lawyer.

The feeling of impending sensation became more acute
when it circulated through the room, starting from Captain
Taylor at the inner door, that Ollic had been summoned as
a witness for the defense ; Captain Taylor had served the
subpoena himself.

" Well, in that case, Sam Lucas knew what he was doing,"
people allowed. " Just wait ! " It was as good as a spiritu
ous stimulant to their lagging interest. "Just you wait till
Sam Lucas gets hold of her," they said.

Hammer began the defense by calling his character wit-

259

260 The Bondboy

nesses and establishing Joe's past reputation for " truth and
veracity and general uprightness."

There was no question in the character which Joe's neigh
bors gave him. They spoke warmly of his past record among
them, of his fidelity to his word and obligation, and of the
family record, which Hammer went into with free and
unhampered hand.

The prosecutor passed these witnesses with serene confi
dence. He probably believed that his case was already made,
people said, or else he was reserving his fire for Isom's widow,
who, it seemed to everybody, had turned against nature and
her own interests in allying herself with the accused.

The morning was consumed in the examination of these
character witnesses, Hammer finishing with the last of thenl
just before the midday adjournment. The sheriff was pre
paring to remove the prisoner. Joe's hand had been released
from the arm of the chair, and the officer had fastened the
iron around his wrist. The proceeding always struck Joe
with an overwhelming wave of degradation and now he stood
with bowed head and averted face.

" Come on," said the sheriff, goggling down at him with
froggish eyes from his vantage on the dais where the witness-
chair stood, his long neck on a slant like a giraffe's. The
sheriff took great pleasure in the proceeding of attaching the
irons. It was his one central moment in the eyes of the
throng.

Joe looked up to march ahead of the sheriff out of the
room, and his eyes met the eyes of Alice. She was not far
away, and the cheer of their quick message was like a spoken
word. She was wearing the same gray dress that she had
worn on that day of days, with the one bright feather in
her bonnet, and she smiled, nodding to him. And then the
swirl of bobbing heads and moving bodies came between them
and she was lost.

The Blow of a Friend 261

He looked for her again as the sheriff pushed him along
toward the door, but the room was in such confusion that he
could not single her out. The judge had gone out through
his tall, dark door, and the court-room was no longer an
awesome place to those who had gathered for the trial. Men
put their hats on their heads and lit their pipes, and bit
into their twists and plugs of tobacco and emptied their
mouths of the juices as they went slowly toward the door.

Mrs. Greening was the first witness called by Hammer after
the noon recess. Hammer quickly discovered his purpose
in calling her as being nothing less than that of proving
by her own mouth that her husband, Sol, was a gross and
irresponsible liar.

Hammer went over the whole story of the tragedy — Mrs.
Greening having previously testified to all these facts as a
witness for the state — from the moment that Sol had called
her out of bed and taken her to the Chase home to support
the young widow in her hour of distraction and fear. By
slow and lumbering ways he led her, like a blind horse flound
ering along a heavy road, through the front door, up the
stairs into Ollie's room, and then, in his own time and fashion,
he arrived at what he wanted to ask.

"Now I want you to tell this jury, Mrs. Greening, if at
any time, during that night or thereafter, you discussed or
talked of or chatted about the killing of Isom Chase with
your husband?" asked Hammer.

" Oh laws, yes," said Mrs. Greening.

The prosecuting attorney was rising slowly to his feet. He
seemed concentrated on something ; a frown knotted his brow,
and he stood with his open hand poised as if to reach out
quickly and check the flight of something which he expected
to wing in and assail the jury.

Said Hammer, after wiping his glistening forehead with
a yellow silk handkerchief:

262 The Bondboy

" Yes. And now, Mrs. Greening, I will ask von if at any
time your husband ever told you what was said, if anything,
by any party inside of that house when he run up to the
kitchen door that night and knocked?"

"I object!" said the prosecutor sharply, Hinging out his
ready hand.

"Don't answer that question!" warned the judge.

Mrs. Greening had it on her lips ; anybody who could read
print on a signboard could have told what they were shaped
to say. She held them there in their preliminary position
of enunciation, pursed and wrinkled, like the tied end of a
sausage-link.

'* I will frame the question in another manner," said Ham
mer, again feeling the need of his large handkerchief.

" There is no form that would be admissible, your honor,"
protested the prosecutor. " It is merely hearsay that the
counsel for the defense is attempting to bring out and get
before the jury. I object!"

" Your course of questioning, Mr. Hammer, is highly
improper, and in flagrant violation to the established rules
of evidence," said the judge. "You must confine yourself
to proof by this witness of what she, of her own knowledge
and experience, is cognizant of. Nothing else is permissible."

"But, your honor, I intend to show by this witness that
when Sol Greening knocked on that door —

"I object! She wasn't present; she has testified that she
was at home at that time, and in bed."

This from the prosecutor, in great heat.

"Your honor, I intend to prove— " began Hammer.

" This line of questioning is not permissible, as I told you
before," said the judge in stern reproof.

But Hammer was obdurate. He was for arguing it, and
the judge ordered the sheriff to conduct the jury from the
room. Mrs. Greening, red and uncomfortable, and all at

The Blow of a Friend 263

sea over it, continued sitting in the witness-chair while Ham
mer laid it off according to his view of it, and the prosecutor
came back and tore his contentions to pieces.

The judge, for no other purpose, evidently, than to prove
to the defendant and public alike that he was unbiased and
fair — knowing beforehand what his ruling must be — indulged
Hammer until he expended his argument. Then he laid the
matter down in few words.

Mrs. Greening had not been present when her husband
knocked on the door of Isom Chase's kitchen that night ; she
did not know, therefore, of her own experience what was
spoken. Xo matter what her husband told her he said, or
anybody else said, she could not repeat the words there under
oath. It would be hearsay evidence, and such evidence was
not admissible in any court of law. No matter how impor
tant such testimony might appear to one seeking the truth,
the rules of evidence in civilized courts barred it. Mrs.
Greening's lips must remain sealed on what Sol said Joe
said, or anybody said to someone else.

So the jury was called back, and Mrs. Greening was
excused, and Hammer wiped off the sweat and pushed back
his cuff's. And the people who had come in from their farm
steads to hear this trial by jury — all innocent of the
traditions and precedents of practice of the law — marveled
how it could be. Why, nine people out of nine, all over the
township where Sol Greening lived, would take his wife's
word for anything where she and Sol had different versions
of a story.

It looked to them like Sol had told the truth in the first
place to his wife, and lied on the witness-stand. And here
she was, all ready to show the windy old rascal up, and they
wouldn't let her. Well, it beat all two o'clock !

Of course, being simple people who had never been at a
university in their lives, they did not know that Form and

264 The Bondboy

Precedent are the two pillars of Strength and Beauty, the
Jachin and Boaz at the entrance of the temple of the law.
Or that the proper genuflections before them are of more-
importance than the mere bringing out of a bit of truth
which might save an accused man's life.

And so it stood before the jury that Sol Greening had
knocked on the door of Isom Chase's kitchen that night and
had not been bidden to enter, when everybody in the room,
save the jury of twelve intelligent men — who had been taken
out to keep their innocence untainted and their judgment
unbiased by a gleam of the truth — knew that he had sat
up there and lied.

Hammer cooled himself off after a few minutes of mopping,
and called Ollie Chase to the witness-chair. Ollie seemed
nervous and full of dread as she stood for a moment stowing
her cloak and handbag in her mother's lap. She turned back
for her handkerchief when she had almost reached the little
gate in the railing through which she must pass to the
witness-chair. Hammer held it open for her and gave her
the comfort of his hand under her elbow as she went forward
to take her place.

A stir and a whispering, like a quick wind in a corn-field,
moved over the room when Ollie's name was called. Then
silence ensued. It was more than a mere listening silence ;
it was impertinent. Everybody looked for a scandal, and
most of them hoped that they should not depart that day with
their long-growing hunger unsatisfied.

Ollie took the witness-chair with an air of extreme ner
vousness. As she settled down in her cloud of black skirt,
black veil, and shadow of black sailor hat, she cast about the
room a look of timid appeal. She seemed to be sounding the
depths of the listening crowd's sympathy, and to find it
shallow and in shoals.

Hammer was kind, with an unctuous, patronizing gentle-

The Blow of a Friend 265

ness. He seemed to approach her with the feeling that she
might say a great deal that would be damaging to the
defendant if she had a mind to do it, but with gentle adroit
ness she could be managed to his advantage. Led by a
question here, a helping reminder there, Ollie went over her
story, in all particulars the same as she had related at the
inquest.

Hammer brought out, with many confidential glances at
the jury, the distance between Ollie's room and the kitchen;
the fact that she had her door closed, that she had gone
to bed heavy with weariness, and was asleep long before
midnight ; that she had been startled by a sound, a strange
and mysterious sound for that quiet house, and had sat up
in her bed listening. Sol Greening had called her next, in a
little while, even before she could master her fright and con
fusion and muster courage to run down the hall and call Joe.

Hammer did well with the witness ; that was the general
opinion, drawing from her a great deal about Joe's habit of
life in Isom's house, a great deal about Isom's temper, hard
ways, and readiness to give a blow.

She seemed reluctant to discuss Isom's faults, anxious,
rather, to ease them over after the manner of one whose
judgment has grown less severe with the lapse of time.

Had he ever laid hands on her in temper? Hammer wanted
to know.

" Yes." Her reply was a little more than a whisper, with
head bent, with tears in her sad eyes. Under Hammer's
pressure she told about the purchase of the ribbon, of Isom's
iron hand upon her throat.

The women all over the room made little sounds of pitying
deprecation of old Isom's penury, and when Hammer drew
from her, with evident reluctance on her part to yield it up, the
story of her hard-driven, starved, and stingy life under
Isom's roof, they put their handkerchiefs to their eyes.

266 The Bondboy

All the time Ollie was following Hammer's kind leading,
the prosecuting attorney was sitting with his hands clasped
behind his head, balancing his weight on the hinder legs of
his chair, his foot thrown over his knee. Apparently he was
bored, even worried, by Hammer's pounding attempts to
make Isoin out a man who deserved .something slower and
less merciful than a bullet, years before he came to his violent
end.

Through it all Joe sat looking at. Oilie. great pi'.y for her
forlorn condition and broken spirit in his honest eyes. She
did not meet his glance, not for one wavering second. When
she went to the stand she passed him with bent head; in the
chair she looked in every direction but his, mainly at her
hands, clasped in her lap.

At last Hammer seemed skirmishing in his mind in search
of some stray question which might have escaped him, which
he appeared unable to find. lie turned his papers, he made
a show of considering something, while the witness sat with
her head bowed, her half-closed evelids purple from much
weeping, worrying, and watching for the coming of one who
had taken the key to her poor, simple heart and gone his
careless way.

"That's all, Missis Chase," said Hammer.

Ollie leaned over, picked up one of her gloves that had
fallen to the floor, and started to leave the chair. Her relief
was evident in her face. The prosecutor, suddenly alive,
was on his feet, lie stretched out his arm, staying her with
a commanding gesture.

"Wait a minute, Mrs. Chase,'' said he.

A stir of expectation rustled through the room again as
Ollie resumed her seat. People moistened their lips, suddenly
grown hot and drv.

*' Now, just: watch Sam Lucas!" they said.

" Now, Mrs. Chase," began the prosecutor, assuming the

The Blow of a Friend 267

polemical attitude common to small lawyers when cross-
examining a witness; "I'll ask you to tell this jury whether
you were alone in your house with Joe Newbolt on the night
of October twelfth, when Isom Chase, your husband, was
killed?"

" Yes, sir."

" This man Morgan, the book-agent, who had been board
ing with you, had paid his bill and gone away?"

" Yes, "sir."

" And there was absolutely nobody in the house that night
but j^ourself and Joe Xewbolt? "

"Nobody else."

" And you have testified, here on this witness-stand, before
this court and this jury "• — that being another small lawyer's
trick to impress the witness with a sense of his own unworthi-
ness — " that you went to bed early that night. Now, where
was Joe Newbolt?"

" I guess he was in bed," answered Ollie, her lips white ;
" I didn't go to see."

" No, you didn't go to see," repeated the prosecutor with
significant stress. " Very well. Where did your husband
keep his money in the house?"

" I don't know ; I never saw any of it," Ollie answered.

The reply drew a little jiggling laugh from the crowd. It
rose and died even while Captain Taylor's knuckles were
poised over the panel of the door, and his loud rap fell too
late for all, save one deep-chested farmer in a far corner,
who must have been a neighbor of old Isom. This man's
raucous mirth seemed a roar above the quiet of the packed
room. The prosecutor looked in his direction with a frown.
The sheriff stood up and peered over that way threateningly.

" Preserve order, Mr. Sheriff," said the judge severely.

The sheriff pounded the table with his hairy fist. "Now, I
tell you I don't want to hear no more of this ! " said he.

18

268 The Bondboy

The prosecutor was shaken out of his pose a bit by the
courtroom laugh. There is nothing equal to a laugh for that,
to one who is laboring to impress his importance upon the
world. It took him some time to get back to his former
degree of heat, skirmishing around with incidental question
ing. He looked over his notes, pausing. Then he faced
Ollie again quickly, leveling his ringer like a pointer of direct
accusation.

" Did Joe Newbolt ever make love to you? " he asked.

Joe's face flushed with resentful fire; but Ollie's white
calm, forced and strained that it was, remained unchanged.

" No, sir ; he never did."

"Did he ever kiss you?"

"No, I tell you, he didn't!" Ollie answered, with a little
show of spirit.

Hammer rose with loud and voluble objections, which had,
for the first time during the proceedings, Joe's hearty indorse
ment. But the judge waved him down, and the prosecutor
pressed his new line of inquisition.

" You and Joe Newbolt were thrown together a good deal,
weren't you, Mrs. Chase — you were left there alone in the
house while your husband was away in the field, and other
places, frequently?"

" No, not very much," said Ollie, shaking her head.

" But you had various opportunities for talking together
alone, hadn't you?"

" I never had a chance for anything but work," said Ollie
wearily.

Unawed by the sheriff's warning, the assembly laughed
again. The sound ran over the room like a scudding cloud
across a meadow, and when the sheriff stood again to set his
censorious eye upon someone responsible, the last ripple was
on the farther rows. Nobody can catch a laugh in a crowd ;
it is as evasive as a pickpocket. Nobody can turn with

The Blow of a Friend 269

watchful eye upon it and tell in what face the ribald gleam
first breaks. It is as impossible as the identification of the
first stalk shaken when a breeze assails a field of grain.

The sheriff, not being deeper than another man, saw the
fatuity of his labor. He turned to the court with a clownish
gesture of the hands, expressive of his utter inability to stop
this thing.

"Proceed with the case," said the judge, understanding
the situation better than the sheriff knew.

The prosecuting attorney labored away with Ollie, full of
the feeling that something masked lay behind her pale reti
cence, some guilty conspiracy between her and the bound
boy, which would show the lacking motive for the crime.
He asked her again about Morgan, how long she had known
him, where he came from, and where he went — a question
to which Ollie would have been glad enough to have had the
answer herself.

He hung on to the subject of Morgan so persistently that
Joe began to feel his throat drying out with a closing sen
sation which he could not swallow. He trembled for Ollie,
fearing that she would be forced into telling it all. That
was not a woman's story, thought he, with a heart full of
resentment for the prosecutor. Let him wait till Morgan
came, and then —

But what grounds had he now for believing Morgan might
come? Unless he came within the next hour, his coming might
be too late.

" You were in bed and asleep when the shot that killed your
husband was fired, you have told the jury, Mrs. Chase?"
questioned the prosecutor, dropping Morgan at last.

"Yes, sir."

" Then how did it come that when Mrs. Greening and her
daughter-in-law arrived a few minutes later you were all
dressed up in a white dress ? "

270 The Bondboy

"I just slipped it on,'' said she.

"You just slipped it on," repeated the prosecutor, turning
his eyes to the jury, and not even facing Mrs. Chase as he
spoke, but reading into her words discredit, suspicion, and a
guilty knowledge.

"It was the only one I had besides two old wrappers. It.
was the one I was married in, and the only one I could put
on to look decent in before people," said she.

A crowd is the most volatile thing in the world. It can
laugh and sigh and groan and weep, as well as shout and
storm, with the ease of an infant, and then immediately regain
its immobility and fixed attention. With Ollie's simple state
ment a sound rose from it which was a denunciation and a
curse upon the ashes of old Isom Chase. It was as if a
sympathetic old lady had shaken her head and groaned:

"Oh, shame on you — shame!"

Hammer gave the jury a wide-sweeping look -of satisfaction,
and made a note on the tumbled pile of paper which lav in
front of him.

The prosecutor was a man with congressional aspirations,
and he did not care to prejudice his popularity by going
too far in baiting a woman, especially one who had public
sympathy in the measure that it was plainly extended to
Ollie. lie eased up, descending from his heights of severity,
and began to address her respectfully in a manner that was
little short of apology for what his stern dutv compelled
him to do.

"Now I will ask you, Mrs. Chase, whether vour husband
and this defendant, Joe Newbolt, ever had words in your
hearing? "

"Once," Ollie replied.

"Do you recall the day?"

" It was the morning after Joe came to our house to work,"
said she.

Tlie Blow of a Friend 271

" Do you remember what the trouble was about and what
was said? "

" Well, they said a good deal," Ollie answered. " They
fussed because Joe didn't get up when Isom called him."

Joe felt his heart contract. It seemed to him that Ollie
need not have gone into that ; it looked as if she was bent not
alone on protecting herself, but on fastening the crime on
him. It gave him a feeling of uneasiness. Sweat came out on
his forehead ; his palms grew moist. He had looked for Ollie
to stand by him at least, and now she seemed running away,
eager to tell something that would sound to his discredit.

" You may tell the jury what happened that morning, Mrs.
Chase."

Hammer's objection fell on barren ground, and Ollie told
the story under the directions of the judge.

" You sav there was a sound of scuffling after Isom called
him?" asked the prosecutor.

"Yes, it sounded like Isom shook him and Joe jumped out
of bed."

"And what did Joe Newbolt say?"

" He said, ' Put that down ! I warned you never to lift
your hand against me. If }rou hit me, I'll kill you in your
tracks!'"

" That's what you heard Joe Newbolt say to your husband
up there in the loft over your head?"

The prosecutor was eager. He leaned forward, both hands
on the table, and looked at her almost hungrily. The jury
men shuffled their feet and sat up in their chairs with renewed
interest. A hush fell over the room. Here was the motive
at the prosecutor's hand.

" That's what he said," Ollie affirmed, her gaze bent down
ward.

She told how Isom had come down after that, followed by
Joe. And the prosecutor asked her to repeat what she had

272 The Eondboy

heard Joe say once more for the benefit of the jury. He spoke
with the uir of a man who already has the game in the bag.

When the prosecutor was through with his profitable cross-
examination, Hammer tried to lessen the effect of Ollie's
damaging disclosure, but failed. He was a depressed and
crestfallen man when he gave it up.

Ollie stepped down from the place of inquisition with the
color of life coming again into her drained lips and cheeks,
the breath freer in her throat. Her secret had not been torn
from her fearful heart ; she had deepened the cloud that hung
over Joe Newbolt's head. "Let him blab now," said she in
her inner satisfaction. A man might say anything against
a woman to save his neck ; she was wise enough and deep
enough, for all her shallowness, to know that people were
quick to understand a thing like that.

In passing back to her place beside her mother she had not
looked at Joe. So she did not see the perplexity, anxiety,
even reproach, which had grown in Joe's eyes when she
testified against him.

" She had no need to do that," thought Joe, sitting there
in the glow of the prosecutor's triumphant face. He had
trusted Ollie to remain his friend, and, although she had told
nothing but the truth concerning his rash threat against
Isom, it seemed to him that she had done so with a studied
intent of working him harm.

His resentment rose against Ollie, urging him to betray her
guilty relations with Morgan and strip her of the protecting
mantle which he had wrapped about her at the first. Pie
wondered whether Morgan had not come and entered into
a conspiracy with her to shield themselves. In such case
what would his unfolding of the whole truth amount to,
discredited as he already was in the minds of the jurors by
that foolish threat which he had uttered against Isom in
the thin dawn of that distant day?

The Blow of a Friend 273

Perhaps Alice had gone away, also, after hearing Ollie's
testimony, in the belief that he was altogether unworthy,
and already branded with the responsibility for that old
man's death. He longed to look behind him and search the
throng for her, but he dared not.

Joe bowed his head, as one overwhelmed by a sense of
guilt and shame, yet never doubting that he had acted for
the best when he assumed the risk on that sad night to shield
his master's wife. It was a thing that a man must do, that
a man would do again.

He did not know that Alice Price, doubting not him, but
the woman who had just left the witness-stand and resumed
her place among the people, was that moment searching
out the shallow soul of Ollie Chase with her accusing eyes.
She sat only a little way from Ollie, in the same row of
benches, beside the colonel. She turned a little in her place
so she could see the young widow's face when she came down
from the stand with that new light in her eyes. Now she
whispered to her father, and looked again, bending forward
a little in a way that seemed impertinent, considering that
it was Alice Price.

Ollie was disconcerted by this attention, which drew other
curious eyes upon her. She moved uneasily, making a bustle
of arranging herself and her belongings in the seat, her
heart troubled with the shadow of some vague fear.

Why did Alice Price look at her so accusingly? Why did
she turn to her father and nod and whisper that way? What
did she know? What could she know? What was Joe New-
bolt and his obscure life to Colonel Price's fine daughter,
sitting there dressed better than any other woman in the
room? Or what was Isom Chase, his life, his death, or his
widow, to her ?

Yet she had some interest beyond a passing curiosity, for
Ollie could feel the concentration of these sober brown eyes

274 The Jiondboi/

upon her, even when she turned to avoid them. She recalled
the interest that Colonel Price and his daughter had taken in
Joe. People had talked of it at first. They couldn't under
stand it any more than she could. The colonel and his
daughter had visited Joe in jail, and carried hooks to him,
and treated him as one upon their own level.

What had Joe told them? Had the coward betrayed her?

Ollie was assailed again by all her old, dread fears. What
if they should gut up and denounce her? With all of Colonel
Price's political and social influence, would not the public, and
the judge and jury, believe Joe's story if he should say it
was true? She believed now that it was all arranged for Joe
to denounce her, and that timid invasion of color was
stemmed in her cheeks again.

It was a lowering day, with a threat of unseasonable dark
ness in the waning afternoon. The judge looked at his watch ;
Captain Taylor stirred himself and pushed the shutters back
from the two windows farthest from the bench, and let in
more light.

People did not know just what was coming next, but the
atmosphere* of the room was charged with a foreboding of
something big. Xo man would risk missing it by leaving,
although rain was threatening, and long drives over dark
roads lay ahead of many of the anxious listeners.

Hammer was in consultation with Joe and his mother. He
seemed to be protesting and arguing, with a mighty spreading
of the hands and shaking of the head. The judge was
writing busily, making notes on his charge to the jury, it
was supposed.

The prosecuting attorney took advantage of the momen
tary lull to get up and stretch his legs, which he did literally,
one after the other, shaking his shanks to send down his
crumpled pantaloons. He went to the window with lounging
stride, hands in pockets, and pushed the sash a foot higher.

The Blow of a Friend 275

There he stood, looking out into the mists which hung gray
in the maple trees.

The jurymen, tired and unshaved, and over the momentary
thrill of Ollie's disclosure, lolled and sprawled in the box.
It seemed that they now accepted the thing as settled, and the
prospect of further waiting was boresome. The people set
up a little whisper of talk, a clearing of throats, a blowing
of noses, a shifting of feet, a general preparation and read
justment for settling down again to absorb all that might
fall.

The country folk seated in the vicinity of Alice Price,
among whom her fame had traveled far, whom many of their
sons had loved, and languished for, and gone off to run street
cars on her account, turned their freed attention upon her,
nudging, gazing, gossiping.

*' Purty as a picture, ain't she?"

" Oh, I don't know. You set her 'longside of Bessie Graver
over at Pink Hill " — and so on.

The judge looked up from his paper suddenly, as if the
growing sound within the room had startled him out of his
thought. His face wore a fleeting expression of surprise.
He looked at the prosecutor, at the little group in conference
at the end of the table below him, as if he did not understand.
Then his judicial poise returned. He tapped with his pen
on the inkstand.

" Gentlemen, proceed with the case," said he.

The prosecuting attorney turned from the window with
alacrity, and Hammer, sweating and shaking his head in one
last gesture of protest to his client — who leaned back and
folded his arms, with set and stubborn face — rose
ponderously. He wiped his forehead with his great, broad
handkerchief, and squared himself as if about to try a high
hurdle or plunge away in a race.

" Joseph Newbolt, take the witness-chair," said he.

CHAPTER XVIII

A NAME AND A MESSAGE

WHEN" Hammer called his name, Joe felt a revival of his
old desire to go to the witness-chair and tell Judge
Maxwell all about it in his own way, untenable and dangerous
as his position had appeared to him in his hours of depression.
Now the sheriff released his arm, and he went forward eagerly.
He held up his hand solemnly while the clerk administered
the oath, then took his place in the witness-chair. Ollic's
face was the first one that his eyes found in the crowd.

It seemed as if a strong light had been focused upon it,
leaving the rest of the house in gloom. The shrinking
appeal which lay in her eyes moved him to pity. He strove
to make her understand that the cunning of the sharpest
lawyer could set no trap which would surprise her secret
from him, nor death itself display terrors to frighten it out
of his heart.

It seemed that a sunbeam broke in the room then, but
perhaps it was only the clearing away of doubt and vacilla
tion from his mind, with the respectable feeling that he had
regained all the nobility which was slipping from him, and
had come back to a firm understanding with himself.

And there was Alice, a little nearer to the bar than lie had
expected to see her. Her face seemed strained and anxious,
but he could not tell whether her sympathy was dearer, her
feeling softer for him in that hour than it would have been
for any other man. Colonel Price had yielded his scat to a
woman, and now he stood at the back of the room in front
of the inner door as a privileged person, beside Captain
Taylor.

270

A Name and a Message 277

Mrs. Newbolt sat straight-backed and expectant, her hand
on the back of Joe's empty chair, while the eager people
strained forward to possess themselves of the sensation which
they felt must soon be loosed among them.

Joe's hair had grown long during his confinement. He
had smoothed it back from his forehead and tucked it behind
his ears. The length of it, the profusion, sharpened the
thinness of his face; the depth of its blackness drew out his
pallor until he seemed all bloodless and cold.

Three inches of great, bony arm showed below his coat
sleeves ; that spare garment buttoned across his chest,
strained at its seams. Joe wrore the boots which he had on
when they arrested him, scarred and work-worn by the stubble
and thorns of Isom Chase's fields and pastures. His trousers
were tucked into their wrinkled tops, which sagged half-way
down his long calves.

Taken in the figure alone, he was uncouth and oversized
in his common and scant gear. But the lofty nobility of
his severe young face and the high-lifting forehead, pro
claimed to all who were competent in such matters that it
was only his body that was meanly clad.

Hammer began by asking the usual questions regarding
nativity and age, and led on with the history of Joe's appren
ticeship to Chase, the terms of it, its duration, compensation ;
of his treatment at his master's hands, their relations of
friendliness, and all that. There was a little tremor and
unsteadiness in Joe's voice at first, as of fright, but this
soon cleared away, and he answered in steady tones.

The jurors had straightened up out of their wearied
apathy, and were listening now with all ears. Joe did not
appear to comprehend their importance in deciding his fate,
people thought, seeing that he turned from them persistently
and addressed the judge.

Joe had taken the stand against Hammer's advice and

27H The Rondboy

expectation, for he had hoped in the end to be able to make
his client see the danger of such a step unless he should
go forward in the intention of revealing everything. Now
the voluble lawyer was winded. lie proceeded with extreme
caution in his questioning, like one walking over mined ground,
fearing that he might himself lead his client into some fateful
admission.

They at length came down to the morning that Isom vent
awav to the county-seat to serve on the jury, and all had
progressed handsomely. Now Joe told how Isom had patted
him on the shoulder that morning, for it had been the aim of
Hammer all along to show that master and man were on the
most friendly terms, and how Isom had expressed confidence
in him. He recounted how, in discharge of the trust that
Isom had put in him, he had come downstairs on the night,
of the tragedy to look around the premises, following in all
particulars his testimony on this point before the coroner's
jury.

Since beginning his story, Joe had not looked at Olhe.
His attention had been divided between Hammer and the
judge, turning from one to the other. He addressed the jury
only when admonished by Hammer to do so, and then he
frequently prefaced his reply to Hammer's question with:

'' I beg your pardon, gentlemen," as if he feared he might
have hurt their feelings by his oversight.

Ollie was cold with apprehension as Joe approached the
point in his recital where the danger lay for her. lie seemed
now to be unaware of her presence, and the fact that lie
did not seek to assure her with his eyes gave a somber color
to her doubts. She knew Hammer's crafty reputation, and
understood his eagerness to bring his client off clear. Per
haps he had worked on Joe to make a clean breast of it.
Maybe he was going to tell.

All her confidence of a little while ago dissolved, the ease

A Name and a Message 279

which followed her descent from the witness-chair vanished.
She plucked at her dark vestments with trembling hands,
her lips half open, her burning eyes on Joe's unmoved face.
If he should tell before all these people, before that stern,
solemn judge — if he should tell!

Joe went on with his story, Hammer endeavoring to lead
him, to the best of his altogether inadequate ability, around
the dangerous shoals. But there was no avoiding them.
When it came to relating the particulars of the tragedy,
Hammer left it all to Joe, and Joe told the story, in all
essentials, just as he had told it under the questioning of the
coroner.

" We had some words, and Isom started for the gun,"
said he.

He went over how he had grappled with Isom in an en
deavor to prevent him turning the gun against him ; told of
the accidental discharge of the weapon ; the arrival of Sol
Greening.

Judge Maxwell leaned back in his chair and listened, his
face a study of perplexity and interest. Now and then he
lifted his drooping lids and shot a quick, searching glance
at the witness, as if seeking to fathom the thing that he had
covered — the motive for Isom Chase's act. It was such
an inadequate story, yet what there was of it was undoubtedly
true.

After Hammer had asked further questions tending to
establish the fact of good feeling and friendship between Joe
and Isom, he gave it over, knowing full well that Joe had set
back his chances of acquittal further than he had advanced
them by his persistency in testifying as he had done.

The jury was now in a fog of doubt, as anybody with
half an eye could see, and there was Sam Lucas waiting, his
eyes glistening, his hard lips set in anticipation of the com
ing fight.

280 The Bondboy

" Take the witness," said Hammer, with something in his
manner like a sigh.

The prosecuting attorney came up to it like a hound on
the scent. He had been waiting for that day. He proceeded
with Joe in a friendly manner, and went over the whole thing
with him again, from the day that he entered Isom's house
under bond service to the night of the tragedy. Sam Lucas
went with Joe to the gate; he stood with him in the moon
light there ; then he accompanied him back to the house,
clinging to him like his own garments.

"And when you opened the kitchen door and stepped inside
of that room, what did you do?" asked the prosecutor,
arranging the transcript of Joe's testimony before the coro
ner's jury in his hands.

" I lit the lamp," said Joe.

" Yes ; you lit the lamp. Now, why did you light the
lamp?"

" Because I wanted to sec," replied Joe.

" Exactly. You wanted to see."

Here the prosecutor moved his eyes slowly along the two
rows of jurors as if he wanted to make certain that none of
them had escaped, and as if he desired to see that every one of
them was alert and wakeful for what he was about to develop.

"Now, tell the jury what you wanted to see."

"Object!" from Hammer, who rose with his right hand
held high, his small finger and thumb doubled in his palm,
like a bidder at an auction.

"Now, your honor, am I to be — '" began the prosecutor
with wearied patience.

*' Object ! " interrupted Hammer, sweating like a haymaker.

"To what do you object, Mr. Hammer?" asked the court
mildly.

" To anything and everything he's about to ask ! " said
Hammer hotly.

281

The court-room received this with a laugh, for there were
scores of cornfield lawyers present. The judge smiled, bal
ancing a pen between finger and thumb.

"The objection is overruled," said he.

"When you lit that lamp, what did you want to see?" the
prosecutor asked again.

" I wanted to see my way upstairs," Joe answered.

The prosecutor threw off his friendly manner like a rustic
flinging his coat for a fight. He stepped to the foot of the
dais on which the witness chair stood, and aimed his finger at
Joe's face.

"What were you carrying in your hand?" he demanded,
advancing his finger a little with every word, as if it held
the key to the mystery, and it was about to be inserted in
the lock.

" Nothing, sir."

"What had you hidden in that room that you wanted a
light to find?"

Ha, he's coming down to it now! whispered the people,
turning wise looks from man to man. Uncle Posen Spratt
set his horn trumpet to his ear, gave it a twist and settled
the socket of it so firmly that not a word could leak out on
the way.

" I hadn't hidden anything, sir," said Joe.

"Where did Isom Chase keep his money?"

" I don't know."

"Had you ever seen him putting any of it away around
the barn, or in the haystack, maybe? "

"No, I never did, sir," Joe answered, respectfully.

The prosecutor took up the now historic bag of gold-
pieces and held it up before the witness.

"When did you first see this bag of money?" he asked,
solemn and severe of voice and bearing.

" When Isom was lying on the floor, after he was shot."

282 The

''You didn't sue it when he v. as trying to get the gun,
and \vhen von say YOU were strufffflinff with him, (loin" the

*. * * n n o o

l>est YOU could to hold linn hack?''

Joe turned to the judge when he answered.

''It might \\i\\ e heen that Isoni had it in his arm, sir,
when lie made lor the place where the gun was hanging.
I don't know. But he tried to keep me oil', and lie hugged
one arm to his side like he was trying to hide something he
didn't want me to see."

"You never saw that hag of money until the moment that
Isom Chase fell, YOU say," said the prosecutor, ''but you have
testified that the lirst words of Isom Chase when he stepped
into the kitehen and saw you, were 'I'll kill you!' Why did
he make that threat?"

" V\V,1, Isom was a man of unreasonable temper," said Joe.

"Isn't it a fact that Isom (.'iiase saw you with that bag of
money in your hand when he came in, and sprung for the gun
to protect his property?"

Joe turned to the judge again, with an air rf respectful
patience.

"I never saw that little pouch of money, Judge Maxwell,
sir, until Isom fell, and lay stretched out there.' on the floor.
I never saw that much money before in my hi'e. and I expect
that I thought more about it for a minute than I did about
Isom. It all happened so quick, you know, sir."

Joe spoke the last words with a covert appeal in them, as
if placing the matter before the judge alone, in the confidence
of his superior understanding, and the belief that lie would
feel their truth.

The /judge seemed to understand. lie nodded encour
agingly and smiled.

"Do vou recall the morning after your arrival at the home
of Isom Chase to begin your service there, when you threat
ened to kill him?" asked the prosecutor.

A Name and a Message 283

" I do recall that morning," admitted Joe ; " but I don't
feel that it's fair to hold me to account for words spoken in
sudden anger and under trying circumstances. A young
person, you know, sir" —addressing the judge — "often
times says things he don't mean, and is sorry for the next
minute. You know how hot the blood of youth is, sir, and
how it drives a person to say more than he means sometimes."

"Now, your honor, this defendant has counsel to plead for
him at the proper time," complained the prosecutor, " and
I demand that he confine himself to answering my questions
without comment."

"Let the witness explain in his own way," said the judge,
who probably felt that this concession, at least, was due
a man on trial for his life. There was a finality in his words
which did not admit of dispute, and the prosecuting attorney
was wise enough not to attempt it.

" You threatened to kill Isom Chase that morning when
he laid hands on you and pulled you out of bed. Your words
were, as 37ou have heard Mrs. Chase testify under oath in
that very chair where }TOU now sit, ' If you hit me, I'll kill
you in your tracks ! ' Those were your words, were they
not?"

"I expect I said something like that — I don't just re
member the exact words now — but that was what I wanted
him to understand. I don't think I'd have hurt him very
much, though, and I couldn't have killed him, because I
wasn't armed. It was a hot-blooded threat, that's all it was."

" You didn't ordinarily pack a gun around with you,
then?"

" No, sir, I never did pack a gun."

" But you said you'd kill old Isom up there in the loft
that morning, and you said it in a way that made him think
you meant it. That's what you wanted him to understand,
wasn't it? "

19

284 The Bondboy

" I talked rough, but I didn't mean it — not as bad as that,
anyhow."

"No, that was just a little neighborly joke, I suppose,"
said the prosecutor sneeringly. He was playing for a laugh
and he got it.

Captain Taylor almost skinned his knuckles rapping them
down that time, although the mirth was neither general nor
boisterous. Joe did not add to Lucas's comment, and he
went on:

" Well, what were you doing when Isom Chase opened the
door and came into the kitchen that night when he came
home from serving on the jury?"

"I was standing by the table," said Joe.

"With your hat in your hand, or on your head, or
where? "

" My hat was on the table. I usually left it there at night,
so it would be handy when I came down in the morning. I
threw it there when I went in, before I lit the lain})."

"And you say that Isom opened the door, came in anil
said, ' I'll kill you ! ' Now, what did he say before that? "

" Not a word, sir," insisted Joe.

" Who else was in that room? "

" Nobody, sir."

The prosecutor leaned forward, his face as red as if lie
struggled to lift a heavy weight.

"Do you mean to sit there and tell this jury that Isom
Chase stepped right into that room and threatened to kill
you without any reason, without any previous quarrel, with
out seeing you doing something that gave him ground for
his threat?"

Joe moved his feet uneasily, clasped and unclasped his long
fingers where thcv rested on the arm of his chair, and mois
tened his lips with his tongue. The struggle was coming now.
Thev would rack him, and tear him, and break his heart.

A Name and a Message 285

" I don't know whether they'll believe it or not," said he
at last.

" Where was Ollie Chase when Isom came into that room? "
asked the prosecutor, lowering his voice as the men who
tiptoed around old Isom when he lay dead on the kitchen
floor had lowered theirs.

"You have heard her say that she was in her room up
stairs," said Joe.

"But I am asking you this question," the prosecutor
reminded him sharply. "Where was Ollie Chase?"

Joe did not meet his questioner's eyes when he answered.
His head was bowed slightly, as if in thought.

" She was in her room, I suppose. She'd been in bed a
long time, for it was nearly midnight then."

The prosecuting attorney pursued this line of questioning
to a persistent and trying length. He wanted to know all
about the relations of Joe and Ollie ; where their respective
rooms were, how they passed to and from them, and the
entire scheme of the household economy.

He asked Joe pointedly, and swung back to that question
abruptly and with sharp challenge many times, whether he
ever made love to Ollie ; whether he ever held her hands, kissed
her, talked with her when Isom was not by to hear what
was said.

The people snuggled down and forgot the oncoming dark
ness, the gray forerunner of which already had invaded the
room as they listened. This was what they wanted to hear ;
this was, in their opinion, getting down to the thing that the
prosecutor should have taken up at the beginning and pushed
to the guilty end. They had come there, day after day, and
sat patiently waiting for that very thing. But the great
sensation which they expected seemed a tedious thing in its
development.

Joe calmly denied the prosecutor's imputations, and put

280 The Bondboy

them aside with an evenness of temper and dignity which
lifted him to a place of high regard in the heart of every
woman present, from grandmother to high-school miss. For,
even though a woman believes her sister guiltv, she admires
the man who knows when to hold his tongue.

For two hours and more Sam Lucas kept hammering away
at the stern front of the defendant witness. He had expected
to break him down, simple-minded country lad that lie sup
posed him to be, in a quarter of that time, and draw from
him Hie truth of the matter in every detail. It was becoming
evident that Joe was feeling the strain. The tiresome repe
tition of the questions, the unvarying denial, the sudden
sorties of the prosecutor in attempt to surprise him, and the
constant labor of guarding against it — all this was heaping
up into a terrific load.

Time and again Joe's eyes had gone to the magnet of
Alice Trice's face, and always he had seen her looking straight
at him — steadily, understandingly, as if she read his purpose.
lie was satisfied that she knew him to be innocent of that
crime, as well as any of the indiscretions with Ollie which the
prosecutor had attempted to force him to admit. If he could
have been satisfied with that assurance alone, his hour
would have been blessed. liut he looked for more in every
fleeting glance that his eyes could wing to her, and in the
turmoil of his mind he was unable to find that which he
sought.

Sam Lucas, seeing that the witness was ncaring the point
of mental and physical strain at which men go to pieces,
and the vigil which they have held above their secrets becomes
open to surprise, hung to him with his worriment of questions,
scarcely granting him time to sigh.

Joe was pestered out of his calm and dignified attitude.
He twisted in his chair, where many a confounded and beset
soul had writhed before him, and ran his fingers through

A Name and a Message 287

his long hair, disturbing it into fantastic disorder. His
breath came through his open lips, his shoulders sagged
wearily, his long back was bent as he drooped forward,
whipping his fagged mind to alertness, guarding every word
now, weighing every answer a deliberate while. Sweat
drenched his face and dampened the thick Avisps of hair. He
scooped the welling moisture from his forehead with his
crooked finger and flung it to the floor with a rustic trick
of the fields.

Sam Lucas gave him no respite. Moment by moment he
pressed the panting race harder, faster ; moment by moment he
grew more exacting, imperative and pressing in his demands
for unhesitating replies. While he harassed and urged the
sweating victim, the prosecutor's eyes narrowed, his thin lips
pressed hard against his teeth. The moment was approaching
for the final assault, for the fierce delivery of the last,
invincible dart.

The people felt it coming, and panted with the acute
pleasures of expectation ; Hammer saw its hovering shadow,
and rose to his feet ; Mrs. Newbolt suffered under the strain
until she rocked from side to side, unconscious of all and
everybody but herself and Joe, and groaned.

What were they going to do to Joe — what were they
going to do?

Sam Lucas was hurling his questions into Joe's face, faster
and faster. His voice was shaded now with the inflection of
accusation, now discredit ; now it rose to the pitch of condem
nation, now it sank to a hoarse whisper of horror as he dwelt
upon the scene in Isom Chase's kitchen, the body of old Isom
stretched in its own blood upon the floor.

Joe seemed to stumble over his replies, to grope, to flounder.
The agony of his soul was in his face. And then, in a moment
of tortured desperation he rose from his seat, tall, gaunt,
disordered, and clasped his hand to his forehead as if driven

288 The Rondboy

to the utmost bound of his endurance and to the outer brink
of his resources.

The prosecutor paused with leveled finger, while Joe, re
membering himself, pushed his hair back from his brow like
one waking from a hot and troubled sleep, and resumed his
seat. Then suddenly, in full volume of voice, the prosecutor
flung at him the lance for which he had been weakening Joe's
defenses through those long and torturing hours.

"Tell this jury what the 'words' were which you have
testified passed between you and Isom Chase after he made
the threat to kill you, and before he ran for the gun!"

Hammer bellowed forth an objection, which was quietly
overruled. It served its purpose in a way, even though it
failed in its larger intent, for the prosecutor's headlong
assault was checked by it, the force of his blow broken.

Joe sat up as if cold water had been dashed over him.
Instead of crushing him entirely, and driving him to the last
corner shrinking, beaten and spiritless, and no longer capable
of resistance, it seemed to give him a new grip on himself, to
set his courage and defiance again on the fighting line.

The prosecuting attorney resented Hammer's interference
at the moment of his victory — -as he believed it- — and turned
to him with an ugly scowl. But Hammer was imperturbable,
lie saw the advantage that he had gained for Joe bv his
interposition, and that was more than he had expected. Only
a moment ago Hammer had believed everything lost.

Sam Lucas repeated the question. Joe drew himself up,
cold and forbidding of front. He met the prosecutor eye
to eye, challenge for challenge.

"I can't tell vou that, sir," he replied.

"The time has come when you must tell it, your evasions
and dodgings will not avail you any longer. What were those
words between you and Isom Chase?"

" I'm sorry to have to refuse you — " began Joe.

289

"Answer — my — question ! " ordered the prosecutor in loud
voice, banging his hand upon the table to accent its terror.

In the excitement of the moment people rose from their
seats, women dropping things which they had held in their
laps, and clasping other loose articles of apparel to their
skirts as they stood uncouthly, like startled fowls poising
for flight.

Joe folded his arms across his chest and looked into the
prosecutor's inflamed face. He seemed to erect between him
self and his inquisitor in that simple movement an impene
trable shield, but he said nothing. Hammer was up, object
ing, making the most of the opportunity. Captain Taylor
rapped on the panel of the old oak door ; the crouching
figures in the crowd settled back to their seats with rustlings
and sighs.

Sam Lucas turned to the judge, the whiteness of deeper
anger sweeping the flush of excitement from his face. His
voice trembled.

"I insist, your honor, that the witness answer my
question ! "

Hammer demanded that the court instruct his client re
garding his constitutional privileges. Mrs. Newbolt leaned
forward and held out her hands in dumb pleading toward her
son, imploring him to speak.

" If the matter which you are withholding," began the
judge in formal speech, "would tend to incriminate you, then
you are acting within your constitutional rights in refusing
to answer. If not, then you can be lodged in jail for contempt
of court, and held there until you answer the question which
the prosecuting attorney has asked you. Do you understand
this?"

" Yes, sir ; I understand," said Joe.

" Then," said the judge, " would it incriminate you to reply
to the prosecuting attorney's question?"

290 The Rondboy

A faint flush spread on Joe's face as he replied:

"\o, Judge Maxwell, it wouldn't incriminate1 me, sir."

Free for the moment from his watchful sword-play of eyes
with the prosecutor, Joe had sought Alice's face when he
replied to the judge. He was still holding her eyes when the
judge spoke again.

'"Then you must answer the question, or .stand in contempt
of court," said he.

Joe rose slowly to his feet. The sheriff, perhaps thinking
that he designed making a dash for liberty, or to throw him
self out of a window, rushed forward in official zeal. The
judge, studying Joe's face narrowly, waved the officer hack.
Joe lifted a hand to his forehead in thoughtful gesture and
stroked back his hair, standing thus in studious pose a little
while. A thousand eyes were bent upon him ; five hundred
palpitating brains were aching for the relief of his reply.
Joe lifted his head and turned solemnly to the judge.

" I can't answer the prosecuting attorney's question, sir,"
he said. ''I'm ready to be taken back to jail."

The jurors had been leaning out of their places to listen,
the older ones with hands cupped to their ears. Now they
settled back with disappointed faces, some of them shaking
their heads in depreciation of such stubbornness.

''You are making a point of honor of it?" said the judge,
sharply but not unkindly, looking over his glasses at the raw
citadel of virtue which rose towerlike before him.

" If you will forgive me, sir, I have no more to say," said
Joe, a flitting shadow, as of pain, passing over his face.

" Sit down," said the judge.

The prosecutor, all on fire from his smothered attempt to
uncover the information which he believed himself so nearly
in possession of, started to say something, and Hammer got
the first syllable of his objection out of his mouth, when
the judge waved both of them down. He turned in his

A Nam,e and a Message 291

chair to Joe, who was waiting calmly now the next event.

Judge Maxwell addressed him again. He pointed out to
Joe that, since he had taken the witness-stand, he had thus
professed his willingness to lay bare all his knowledge of the
tragedy, and that his reservation was an indication of in
sincerity. The one way in which he could have withheld
information not of a self-incriminating nature, was for him to
have kept off the stand. He showed Joe that one'could not
come forward under such circumstances and tell one side of
a story, or a part of it, confessing at the same time that
certain pertinent information was reserved.

"No matter who it hurts, it is your duty now to reveal
the cause of your quarrel between yourself and Isom Chase
that night, and to repeat, to the best of your recollection, the
words which passed between you."

He explained that, unless Joe should answer the question,
it was the one duty of the court to halt the trial there and
send him to jail in contempt, and hold him there, his case
undecided, until he would answer the question asked.

Joe bowed respectfully when the judge concluded, conveying
in that manner that he understood.

"If anything could be gained by it, sir, by anybody — ex
cept myself, perhaps — or if it would bring Isom back to
life, or make anybody happier, I wouldn't refuse a minute,
sir," said Joe. " What Mr. Lucas asks me to tell I've
refused to tell before. I've refused to tell it for my own
mother and Mr. Hammer and — others. I respect the law
and this court, sir, as much as any man in this room, and
it pains me to stand in this position before you, sir.

"But I can't talk about that. It wouldn't change what
I've told about the way Isom was killed. What I've told you
is the truth. What passed between Isom and me before he
took hold of the gun isn't mine to tell. That's all there is
to be said, Judge Maxwell, sir."

292 The Bondboy

" You must answer the prosecuting attorney's question,"
said Judge Maxwell sternly. " No matter what motive of
honor or fealty to the dead, or thought of sparing the living,
may lie behind your concealment of these facts, the law does
not, cannot, take it into account. Your duty now is to reply
to all questions asked, and you will be given another oppor
tunity to do so. Proceed, Mr. Prosecutor."

Hammer hud given it up. He sat like a man collapsed,
bending over his papers on the table, trying to make a front
in his defeat before the public. The prosecuting attorney
resumed the charge, framing his attack in quick lunges. He
was in a clinch, using the short-arm jab.

"After Isom Chase came into the room you had words?"

" We had some words," replied Joe slowly, weary that this
thing should have to be gone over again.

" Were they loud and boisterous words, or were they low
and subdued? "

" Well, Isom talked pretty loud when he was mad," said Joe.

"Loud enough for anybody upstairs to hear — loud
enough to wake anybody asleep up there? "

" I don't know," said Joe coldly, resentful of this flanking
subterfuge.

He must go through that turmoil of strain and suffering
again, all because Morgan, the author of this evil thing, had
lacked the manhood to come forward and admit his misdeeds.

The thoughts will travel many a thousand miles while the
tongue covers an inch ; even while Joe answered he was think
ing of this. More crowded upon him as he waited the prose
cutor's next question. Why should he suffer all that public
misjudgment and humiliation, all that pain and twisting of
the conscience on Morgan's account? What would it avail
in the end? Perhaps Ollie would prove unworthy his sacrifice
for her, as she already had proved ungrateful. Even then
the echo of her testimony against him was in his ears.

293

Why should he hold out faithfully for her, in the hope that
Morgan would come — vain hope, fruitless dream! Morgan
would not come. He was safe, far away from there, having
his laugh over the muddle that he had made of their lives.

" I will ask you again — what were the words that passed
between you and Isom Chase that night?"

Joe heard the question dimly. His mind was on Morgan
and the white road of the moonlit night when he drove away.
No, Morgan would not come.

"Will you answer my question? " demanded the prosecutor.

Joe turned to him with a start. " Sir?" said he.

The prosecutor repeated it, and stood leaning forward for
the answer, his hands on the table. Joe bent his head as if
thinking it over.

And there lay the white road in the moonlight, and the
click of buggy wheels over gravel was in his ears, as he knew
it must have sounded when Morgan drove away, easy in his
loose conscience, after his loose way. Why should he sacrifice
the promise of his young life by meekly allowing them to
fasten the shadow of this dread tragedy upon him, for which
Morgan alone was to blame?

It was unfair — it was cruelly unjust! The thought of it
was stifling the breath in his nostrils, it was pressing the
blood out of his heart! They were waiting for the answer,
and why should he not speak? WThat profit was there in
silence when it would be so unjustly interpreted?

As Ollie had been thoughtless of Isem, so she might be
thoughtless of him, and see in him only a foolish, weak instru
ment to use to her own advantage. Why should he seal his
lips for Ollie, go to the gallows for her, perhaps, and leave
the blight of that shameful end upon his name forever?

He looked up. His mind had made that swift summing up
while the prosecutor's words were echoing in the room. They
were waiting for his answer. Should he speak?

29-1 The Bomlboi/

Mrs. Ncwbolt had risen. There were tears on her old,
worn checks, a yearning in her eyes that smote him with
an accusing pang. He had brought that sorrow upon her,
he had left her to suffer under it when a word would
have cleared it away; when a word — a word for which they
waited now — would make her dun day instantly bright. Ollie
weighed against his mother; Ollie, the tainted, the unclean.

His eyes found Ollie's as he coupled her name with his
mother's in his mind. She was shrinking against her mother's
shoulder — she had a mother, too — pale and afraid.

Mrs. Xewbolt stretched out her hands. The scars of her
toilsome years were upon them; the distortion of the labor
she had wrought for him in his helpless infancy was set upon
their joints. He was placing his liberty and his life in
jeopardy for Ollie, and his going would leave mother without
a stay, after her sacrifice of youth and hope and strength
for him.

Why should he be called upon to do this thing — why, tchy?

The question was a wild cry within his breast, lunging
like a wolf in a leash to burst his lips. His mother drew a
step nearer, unstayed by the sheriff, unchecked by the judge.
She spread her poor hands in supplication ; the tears coursed
down her brown old cheeks.

"Oh, my son, my son — my little son!" she said.

He saw her dimly now, for tears answered her tears. All
was silent in that room, the silence of the forest before the
hurricane grasps it and bends it, and the lightnings reave
its limbs.

"Mother," said he chokingly, "I — I don't know what
to do!"

"Tell it all, Joe!" she pleaded. "Oh, tell it all — tell
it all!"

Her voice was little louder than a whisper, yet it was heard
by every mother in that room. It struck down into their

A Name and a Message 295

hearts with a sharp, riving stab of sympathy, which nothing
but sobs would relieve.

Men clamped their teeth and gazed straight ahead at the
moving scene, unashamed of the tears which rolled across
their cheeks and threaded down their beards ; the prose
cutor, leaning on his hands, bent forward and waited.

Joe's mind was in a tornado. The debris of past resolu
tions Avas flung high, and swirled and dashed in a wild tumult.
There was nothing tangible in his reasoning, nothing plain in
his sight. A mist was before his eyes, a fog was over his
reason. Only there was mother, with those soul-born tears
upon her face. It seemed to him then that his first and his
most sacred duty was to her.

The seconds were as hours. The low moaning of women
sounded in the room. Somebody moved a foot, scraping it
in rude dissonance across the floor. A girl's voice broke out
in sudden sobbing, which was as quickly stifled, with sharp
catching of the breath.

Judge Maxwell moved in his chair, turning slowly toward
the witness, and silence fell.

They were waiting ; they were straining against his doubts
and his weakening resolution of past days, with the concen
tration of half a thousand minds.

A moment of joy is a drop of honey on the tongue; a
moment of pain is bitterer than any essence that Ignatius
ever distilled from his evil bean. The one is as transitory
as a smile ; the other as lingering as a broken bone.

Joe had hung in the balance but a matter of seconds, but
it seemed to him a day. Now he lifted his slim, white hand
and covered his eyes. They were waiting for the word out
there, those uplifted, eager faces; the judge waited, the jury
waited, mother waited. They were wringing it from him, and
honor's voice was dim in its counsel now, and far away.

They were pressing it out of his heart. The law demanded

296 The Bondboy

it, justice demanded it, said the judge. Duty to mother
demanded it, and the call of all that lay in life and liberty.
But for one cool breath of sympathy before he yielded — for
one gleam of an eye that understood !

He dropped his hand at his side, and cast about him in
hungry appeal. Justice demanded it, and the law. But it
would be ignoble to yield, even though Morgan came the next
hour and cleared the stain away.

Joe opened his lips, but they were dry, and no sound issued.
He must speak, or his heart would burst. He moistened his
lips with his hot tongue. They were demanding his answer
with a thousand burning eyes.

"Tell it, Joe — tell it all!" pleaded his mother, reaching
out as if to take his hand.

Joe's lips parted, and his voice came out of them, strained
and shaken, and hoarse, like the voice of an old and hoary
man.

" Judge Maxwell, your honor "

"No, no! Don't tell it, Joe!"

The words sounded like a warning call to one about to
leap to destruction. They broke the tenseness of that mo
ment like the noise of a shot. It was a woman's voice, rich
and full in the cadence of youth ; eager, quick, and strong.

Mrs. Newbolt turned sharply, her face suddenly clouded,
as if to administer a rebuke; the prosecutor wheeled about
and peered into the room with a scowl. Judge Maxwell
rapped comrnandingly, a frown on his face.

And Joe Xewbolt drew a long, free breath, while relief
moved over his troubled face like a waking wind at dawn.
He leaned back in his chair, taking another long breath, as
if life had just been granted him at a moment when hope
seemed gone.

The effect of that sudden warning had been stunning. For
a few seconds the principals in the dramatic picture held

A Name and a Message 297

their poses, as if standing for the camera. And then the
lowering tempest in Judge Maxwell's face broke.

" Mr. Sheriff, find out who that was and bring him or her
forward ! " he commanded.

There was no need for the sheriff to search on Joe's behalf.
Quick as a bolt his eyes had found her, and doubt was con
sumed in the glance which passed between them. Now he
knew all that he had struggled to know of everything. First
of all, there stood the justification of his long endurance.
He had been right. She had understood, and her opinion
was valid against the world.

Even as the judge was speaking, Alice Price rose.

" It was I, sir," she confessed, no shame in her manner,
no contrition in her voice.

But the ladies in the court-room were shocked for her, as
ladies the world over are shocked when one of their sisters
does an unaccountably human thing. They made their feel
ings public by scandalized aspirations, suppressed oh-h-hs,
and deprecative shakings of the heads.

The male portion of the audience was moved in another
direction. Their faces were blank with stunned surprise, with
little gleams of admiration moving a forest of whiskers
here and there whose owners did not know who the speaker
was.

But to everybody who knew Alice Price the thing was
unaccountable. It was worse than interrupting the preacher
in the middle of a prayer, and the last thing that Alice Price,
with all her breeding, blood and education would have been
expected to do. That was what came of leveling oneself to
the plane of common people and " pore " folks, and visiting
them in jail, they said to one another through their wide-
stretched eyes.

Alice went forward and stood before the railing. The
prosecuting attorney drew out a chair and offered it to Mrs.

298 The It on d boy

Newbolt, wlio sat, staring at Alice witli no man knew what
in her heart. Her face was a strange index of disappoint
ment, surprise, and vexation. She said nothing, and Hammer,
glowing with the dawning of hope of something that he could
not well define, squared around and gave Alice a large, fat
smile.

Judge Maxwell regarded her with more surprise than
severity, it appeared. lie adjusted his glasses, bowed his
neck to look over them, frowned, and cleared his throat. And
poor old Colonel Price, overwhelmed entirely by this un
toward breach of his daughter's, stood beside Captain Taylor
shaking his old white head as if he was undone forever.

"I am surprised at this demonstration. Miss Price," said
the judge. "Coming from one of your standing in this
community, it is doubly shocking, for your position in society
should be, of itself, a guarantee of your loyalty to the estab
lished organization of order. It should be your endeavor
to uphold rather than defeat, the ends of justice.

"The defendant at the bar has the benefit of counsel, who
is competent, we believe, to advise him. Your admonition
was altogether out of place. I am pained and humiliated
for you. Miss Price.

"This breach is one which could not, ordinarily, be passed
over simply with a reprimand. But, allowing for the im
petuosity of youth, and the emotion of the moment, the court
will excuse you with this. Similar outbreaks must be guarded
against, and any further demonstration will be dealt with
severely. Gentlemen, proceed with the case."

Alice stood through the /judge's lecture unflinchingly. Her
face was pah-, for she realized the enormity of her transgres
sion, but there was neither fear nor regret in her heart. She
met the judge's eyes with honest courage, and bowed her
head in acknowledgment of his leniency when he dismissed
her.

A Name and a Message 299

From her seat she smiled, faintly above the tremor of her
breast, to Joe. She was not ashamed of what she had done,
she had no defense to make for her words. Love is its
own justification, it wants no advocate to plead for it before
the bar of established usage. Its statutes have needed no
revision since the beginning, they will stand unchanged until
the end.

The prosecuting attorney had seen his castle fall, de
molished and beyond hope of repair, before a charge from the
soft lips of a simple girl. Long and hard as he had labored
to build it up, and encompass Joe within it, it was in ruins
now, and he had no heart to set his hand to the task of raising
it again that day. He asked for an adjournment to morning,
which the weary judge granted readily.

People moved out of the room with less haste and noise than
usual, for the wonder, and the puzzle, of what they had heard
and seen was over them.

What was the aim of that girl in shutting that big,
gangling, raw-boned boy's mouth just Avhen he was opening
it to speak, and to speak the very words which they had sat
there patiently for days to hear? What was he to Alice
Price, and what did she know of the secret which he had been
keeping shut behind his stubborn lips all that time? That
i was what they wanted to know, and that was what troubled
them because they could not make it out at all.

Colonel Price made his way forward against the outpouring
stream to Alice. lie adjusted her cloak around her shoulders,
and whispered to her. She was very pale still, but her eyes
were fearless and bright, and they followed Joe Xewbolt with
a tender caress as the sheriff led him out, his handcuffs in
his pocket, the prisoner's long arms swinging free.

Ollie and her mother were standing near Colonel Price and
Alice, waiting for them to move along and open the passage
to the aisle. As Alice turned from looking after Joe, the

20

300 The Bomlboy

eyes of the young women met, and again Ollie felt the cold,
stern question which Alice seemed to ask her, and to insist
with unsparing hardness that she answer.

A little way along Alice turned her head and held Ollie's
eyes with her own again. As plain as words they said to the
young widow who cringed at her florid mother's side:

"You slinking, miserable, trembling coward, I can see right
down to the bottom of your heart!"

Joe returned to his cell with new vigor in his step, new
warmth in his breast, and a new hope in his jaded soul.
There was no doubt now, no groping for a sustaining hand.
Alice had understood him, and Alice alone, when all the world
assailed him for his secret, and would have torn it from his
lips in shame. She had given him the sympathy, for the lack
of which he must have fallen ; the support, for the want of
which he must have been lost.

For a trying moment that afternoon he had forgotten,
almost, that he was a gentleman, and under a gentleman's
obligation. There had been so much uncertainty, and fear,
and so many clouded days. But a man had no excuse, he
contended in his new strength, even under the direst pressure,
to lose sight of the fact that he was a gentleman. Morgan
had done that. Morgan had not come. But perhaps Mor
gan was not a gentleman at all. That would account for a
great deal, everything, in fact.

There would be a way out without Morgan now. Since
Alice understood, there would be shown a way. lie should
not perish on account of Morgan, and even though he never
came it would not matter greatly, now that Alice understood.

lie was serene, peaceful, and unworried, as he had not been
for one moment since the inquest. The point of daylight
had come again into his dark perspective; it was growing
and gleaming with the promise and cheer of a star.

Colonel Price had no word of censure for his daughter as

A Name and a Message 301

they held their way homeward, and no word of comment on
her extraordinary and immodest — according to the colonel's
view — conduct fell from his lips until they were free from
the crowd. Then the colonel :

"Well, Alice?"

" Yes, Father."

"Why did you do it — why didn't you let him tell it, child?
They'll hang him now, I tell you, they'll hang that boy as
sure as sundown ! And he's no more guilty of that old man's
death than I am."

" No, he isn't," said she.

"Then why didn't you let him talk, Alice? What do you
know?"

" I don't know anything — an}rthing that would be evi
dence," she replied. "But he's been a man all through this
cruel trial, and I'd rather see him die a man than live a
coward ! "

" They'll hang that boy, Alice," said the colonel, shaking
his head sadly. "Nothing short of a miracle can save him
now."

" No, they'll never do that," said she, in quiet faith.

The colonel looked at her with an impatient frown.

"What's to save him, child? " he asked.

" I don't know," she admitted, thoughtfully. Then she
proceeded, with an earnestness that was almost passionate :
" It isn't for himself that he's keeping silent — I'm not afraid
for him on account of what the}7 wanted to make him tell !
Can't you see that, Father, don't you understand?"

" No," said the colonel, striking the pavement sharply with
his stick, " I'll be switched if I do ! But I know this bad
business has taken hold of you, Alice, and changed you
around until you're nothing like the girl I used to have.

" It's too melancholy and sordid for you to be mixed up in.
I don't like it. We've done what we can for the boy, and if

302 The Bomlboi/

he wants to be stubborn and run his neck into the noose on
account of some fool thing or another that he thinks nobody's
got a right to know, I don't see where you're called on 'to
shove him along on his road. And that's what this thing
that you've done today amounts to, as far as I can see."

" I'm sorry that you're displeased with me, Father," said
she, but with precious little indication of humility in her
voice, "but I'd do the same thing over again tomorrow. Joe
didn't want to tell it. What he needed just then was a
friend."

That night after supper, when Colonel Price sat in the
library gazing into the coals, Alice came in softly and put
her arm about his shoulders, nestling her head against his,
her cheek warm against his temple.

"You think I'm a bold, brazen creature, Father, I'm
afraid," she said.

"The farthest thing from it in this world," said he. " I've
been thinking over it, and I know that you were right. It's
inscrutable to me, Alice; I lack that God-given intuition that
a woman has for such tilings. But I know that you were
right, and time and events will justify you."

"You remember that both Mr. Hammer and Mr. Lucas
asked Joe and Mrs. Chase a good deal about a book-agent
boarder, Curtis Morgan?" said she.

"Onlv in the way of incidental questioning," he said.
"Why/"

"Don't you remember him? He was that tall, fair man
who sold us the History of the World, wasn't he?"

"Why, it is the same name," said the colonel. "He was
a man with a quick eye and a most curious jumble of frag
mentary knowledge on many subjects, from roses to rattle
snakes. Yes, I remember the fellow very well, since you speak
of him."

"Yes. And he had little fair curls growing close to his

A Name and a Message 303

eyes," said she. " It's the same man, I'm certain of that."

"Why, what difference does it make?" asked lie.

"Not any — in particular — I suppose," she sighed.

The colonel stroked her hair.

" Well, Alice, you're taking this thing too much at heart,
anyhow," he said.

Later that night, long after Joe Newbolt had wearied him
self in pacing up and down his cell, with the glow of his new
hope growing brighter as his legs grew heavier, Alice sat by
her window, gazing with fixed eyes into the dark.

On her lips there was a name and a message, which she
sent out from her heart with all the dynamic intensity of her
strong, young being. A name and a message ; and she sped
them from her lips into the night, to roam the world like a
searching wind.

CHAPTER XIX

THE SHADOW OF A DREAM

JUDGK LITTLE Mas moving about mysteriously. It was
said that lie had found track of Isoin's heir, and that the
count v was to have its second great sensation soon.

Judge Little did not confirm this report, but, like the
middling-good politician that he was, he entered no denial.
As long as the public is uncertain either way, its suspense
is more exquisite, the pleasure of the final revelation is more.'
sweet.

Riding home from the trial on the day that Joe made his
appearance on the witness-stand, Sol Greening fell in with
the judge and, with his nose primed to follow the scent of anv
new gossip, Sol worked his way into the matter of the will.

"Well, I hear you've got track of Isom's boy at last,
Judge?*' said he, pulling up close beside the judge's mount,
so the sound of the horses' feet sucking loose from the clav of
the muddy road would not cheat him out of a word.

Judge Little rode a low, yellow lior.se, commonly called a
"buckskin" in that country. He had come to town unpro
vided with a rubber coat, and his long black garment of
ordinary wear was damp from the blowing mists which pre
saged the coming rain. In order to save the skirts of it, in
which the precious and mysterious pockets were, the judgr
had gathered them up about his waist, as an old woman
gathers her skirts on wash-day. He sat in the saddle, holding
them that way with one hand, while he handled the reins with
the other.

"All things are possible," returned the /judge, his tight old
mouth screwed up after the words, as if more stood in the

304

The Shadow of a Dream 305

door and required the utmost vigilance to prevent them pop
ping forth.

Sol admitted that all things were indeed possible, although
he had his doubts about the probability of a great many
he could name. But he was wise enough to know that one
must agree with a man if one desires to get into his warm
favor, and it was his purpose on that ride to milk Judge
Little of whatever information tickling his vanity* as an ant
tickles an aphis, would cause him to yield.

"Well, he's got a right smart property waitin' him when
he comes," said Sol, feeling important and comfortable just
to talk of all that Isom left.

"A considerable," agreed the judge.

"Say forty or fifty thousand worth, heh?"

"Nearer seventy or eighty, the way land's advancing in
this county," corrected the judge.

Sol whistled his amazement. There was no word in his
vocabulary as eloquent as that.

" Well, all I got to say is that if it was me he left it to,
it wouldn't take no searchin' to find me," he said. " Is he
married? "

"Very likely he is married," said the judge, with that
portentous repression and caution behind his words which
some people are able to use with such mysterious effect.

" Shades of catnip ! " said Sol.

They rode on a little way in silence, Sol being quite ex
hausted on account of his consuming surprise over what he
believed himself to be finding out. Presently he returned to
his prying, and asked :

" Can Ollie come in for her dower rights in case the court
lets Isom's will stand?"

" That is a question," replied the judge, deliberating at his
pause and sucking in his cheeks, " which will have to be
decided."

306 TJie

''Does he favor Isom any?" asked Sol.

"Who?" queried the judge.

" Isom's boy."

"There doubtless is some resemblance — it is only natural
that there should be a resemblance between father and son,"
nodded the judge. "But as for myself, I cannot sav."

"You ain't seen him, heh?" said Sol, eyeing him sharply.

"Xot exactly," allowed the judge.

"Land o' Moab!" said Sol.

They rode on another eighty rods without a word between
them.

"(lot his picture, I reckon?" asked Sol at last, sounding
the judge's face all the while with his eager eyes.

"I turn off here," said the judge. "I'm takin' the short
cut over the ford and through Miller's place. Looks like
the rain would thicken."

He gave Sol good day, and turned off into a brush-
grown road which plunged into the woods.

Sol went on his way, stirred by comfortable emotions.
What a story he meant to spread next day at the county-
seat ; what a piece of news he was going to be the source of.
indeed !

Of course, Sol had no knowledge of what was going forward
at the county farm that very afternoon, even the very hour
when Joe Xewbolt was sweating blood on the witness stand.
If he had known, it is not likely that he would have waited
until morning to spread the tale abroad.

This is what it was.

Ollie's lawyer was there in consultation with L'ncle John
Owens regarding Isom's will. Consultation is the word, for
it had come to that felicitous pass between them. Uncle
John could communicate his thoughts freely to his fellow-
beings again, and receive theirs intelligently.

All this had been wrought not by a miracle, but by the

The Shadow of a Dream 307

systematic preparation of the attorney, who was determined
to sound the secret which lay locked in that silent mind. If
Isom had a son when that will was made a generation back,
Uncle John Owens was the man who knew it, and the only
living man.

In pursuit of this mystery, the lawyer had caused to be
printed many little strips of cardboard in the language of
the blind. These covered all the ground that he desired to
explore, from preliminaries to climax, with every pertinent
question which his fertile mind could shape, and every answer
which he felt was due to Uncle John to satisfV his curiosity
and inform him fully of what had transpired.

The attorney had been waiting for Uncle John to become
proficient enough in his new reading to proceed without diffi
culty. He had provided the patriarch with a large slate,
which gave him comfortable room for his big characters.
Several days before that which the lawyer had set for the
exploration of the mystery of Isom Chase's heir, they had
reached a perfect footing of understanding.

Uncle John was a new man. For several weeks he had
been making great progress with the New Testament, printed
in letters for the blind, which had come on the attorney's
order speedily. It was an immense volume, as big as a barn
door, as Uncle John facetiously wrote on his slate, and when
he read it he sat at the table littered over with his interlocked
rings of wood, and his figures of beast and female angels or
demons, which, not yet determined.

The sun had come out for him again, at the clouded end
of his life. It reached him through the points of his fingers,
and warmed him to the farthest spot, and its welcome was
the greater because his night had been long and its rising
late.

On that afternoon memorable for Joe Newbolt, and all who
gathered at the court-house to hear him, Uncle John learned

The Bondboy

of the death of Isom Cliase. The manner of his death was
not revealed to him in the printed slips of board, and Uncle
John did not ask, very likely accepting it as an event which
comes to all men, and for which he, himself, had long been
prepared.

After that fact had been imparted to the blind preacher,
the lawyer placed under his eager fingers a slip which read:

"Did you ever witness Isom Chase's will?"

Uncle John took his slate and wrote:

" Yes."

"When?"

"Thirty or forty years ago," wrote Uncle John — what
was a decade more or less to him? "When he joined the
Order."

Uncle John wrote this with his face bright in the joy of
being able to hold intelligent communication once more.

More questioning brought out the information that it was
a rule of the secret brotherhood which Isom had joined in
those far days, for each candidate for initiation to make his
will before the administration of the rites.

"What a sturdy old goat that must have been!" thought
the lawyer.

"Do you remember to whom Isom left his property in that
will? " read the pasteboard under the old man's hands.

Uncle John smiled, reminisccntly, and nodded.

" To his son," he wrote. " Isom was the name."

"Do you know when and where that son was born?"

Uncle John's smile was broader, and of purely humorous
cast, as he bent over the slate and began to write carefully,
in smaller hand than usual, as if he had a great deal to say.

" He never was born," he wrote, " not up to the time that
I lost the world. Isom was a man of Belial all his days that
I knew him. lie was set on a son from his wedding day.

"The last time I saw him I joked him about that will, and

The Shadow of a Dream 309

told him he would have to change it. He said no, it would
stand that way. He said he would get a son yet. Abraham
was a hundred when Isaac was born, he reminded me. Did
Isom get him?"

" No," was the word that Uncle John's fingers found. He
shook his head, sadly.

" He worked and saved for him all his life," the old man
wrote. " He set his hope of that son above the Lord."

Uncle John was given to understand the importance of his
information, and that he might be called upon to give it over
again in court.

He was greatly pleased with the prospect of publicly dis
playing his new accomplishment. The lawyer gave him a
printed good-bye, shook him by the hand warmly, and left him
poring over his ponderous book, his dumb lips moving as his
fingers spelled out the words.

They were near the end and the quieting of all this flurry
that had risen over the property of old Isom Chase, said the
lawyer to himself as he rode back to town to acquaint his
client with her good fortune. There was nothing in the way
of her succession to the property now. The probate court
would, without question or doubt, throw out that ridiculous
document through which old Judge Little hoped to grease
his long wallet.

With Isom's will would disappear from the public notice
the one testimony of his only tender sentiment, his only human
softness ; a sentiment and a softness which had been born of
a desire and fostered by a dream.

Strange that the hard old man should have held to that
dream so stubbornly and so long, striving to gain for it,
hoarding to enrich it, growing bitterer for its long coming,
year by year. And at last he had gone out in a flash, leaving
this one speaking piece of evidence of feeling and tenderness
behind.

310 The Bomlboi/

Perhaps Isom Chase would have been different, reflected the
lawver, if fate had yielded him his desire and given him a son ;
perhaps it would have softened his hand and mellowed his
heart in his dealings with those whom he touched; perhaps
it would have lifted him above the narrow strivings which
had atrophied his virtues, and let the sunlight into the dark
places of his soul.

So communing with himself, he arrived in town. The peo
ple were coming out of the court-house, the lowering gray
clouds were settling mistily. But it was a clearing day for
his client ; lie hastened on to tell her of the turn fortune had
made in her behalf.

CHAPTER XX

i •"

THE PENALTY IS DEATH !

WHEN court convened the following morning for the
last act in the prolonged drama of Joe Newbolt's
trial, the room was crowded even beyond the congestion of the
previous day.

People felt that Sam Lucas was not through with the
accused lad yet ; they wanted to be present for the final and
complete crucifixion. It was generally believed that, under
the strain of Lucas's bombardment, Joe would break down
that da}r.

The interference of Alice Price, unwarranted and beyond
reason, the public said, had given the accused a respite, but
nothing more. Whatever mistaken notion she had in doing it
was beyond them, for it was inconceivable that she could be
wiser than another, and discover virtues in the accused that
older and wiser heads had overlooked. Well, after the rebuke
that Judge Maxwell had given her, she wouldn't meddle
again soon. It was more than anybody expected to see her
in court again. No, indeed, they said; that would just about
settle her.

Such a fine girl, too, and such a blow to her father. It
was a piece of forwardness that went beyond the imagination
of anybody in the town. Could it be that Alice Price Had
become tainted with socialism or woman's rights, or any
of those wild theories which roared around the wide world
outside Shelbyville and created such commotion and unrest?
Maybe some of those German doctrines had got into her
head, such as that young Professor Gobel, whom the regents
discharged from the college faculty last winter, used to teach.

311

.312 The Sandboy

It was too bad ; nearly everybody regretted it, for it took
a girl a long time to live down a thing like that in Shelbyville.
But the greatest shock and disappointment of nil was, al
though nobody would admit it, that she had shut Joe's mouth
on the very thing that the public ear was itching to hear.
She had cheated the public of its due, and taken the food
out of its mouth when it was ravenous. That was past
forgiveness.

Dark conjectures were hatched, therefore, and scandalous
hints were set traveling. Mothers said, well, tliev thanked
their stars that she hadn't married their sons ; and fathers
philosophized that you never could tell how a filly would
turn out till you put the saddle on her and tried her on the
road. And the public sighed and gasped and shook its
head, and was comfortably shocked and satisfvinglv
scandalized.

The sheriff brought the prisoner into court that morning
with free hands. Joe's face seemed almost beatific in its
exalted serenity as he saluted his waiting mother with a smile.
To those who had seen the gray pallor of his strained face
yesterday, it appeared as if he had cast his skin during the
night, and with it his harassments and haunting fears, and
had come out this morning as fresh and unscarrcd as a child.

Joe stood for a moment running his eyes swiftly over thf
room. When they found the face they sought a warm light
shot into them as if he had turned up the wick of his soul.
She was not so near the front as on the day before, yet she
was close enough for eve to speak to eye.

People marked the exchange of unspoken salutations
between them, and nudged each other, and whispered: "There
she is ! " They wondered how she was going to cut up today,
and whether it would not end for her by getting herself sent
to jail, along with that scatter-feathered young crow whom
she seemed to have taken into her heart.

" The Penalty Is Death! " 313

Ollie was present, although Joe had not expected to see
her, he knew not why. She was sitting in the first row of
benches, so near him he could have reached over and taken
her hand. He bowed to her; she gave him a sickly smile,
which looked on her pale face like a dim breaking of sun
through wintry clouds.

To the great surprise and greater disappointment of the
public in attendance upon the trial, Sam Lucas announced,
when court opened, that the state would not proceed with
the cross-examination of the defendant. Hammer rose with
that and stated that the defense rested. He had no more
witnesses to call.

Hammer wore a hopeful look over his features that morn
ing, a reflection, perhaps, of his client's unworried attitude.
He had not been successful in his attempt to interview Alice
Price, although he had visited her home the night before.
Colonel Price had received him with the air of one who
stoops to contact with an inferior, and assured him that he
was delegated by Miss Price — which was true — to tell
Mr. Hammer that she knew nothing favorable to his client's
cause ; that her caution in his moment of stress had nothing
behind it but the unaccountable impulse of a young and
sympathetic girl.

Hammer accepted that explanation with a large corner of
reservation in his mind. He knew that she had visited the
jail, and it was his opinion that his client had taken her
behind the door of his confidence, which he had closed to
his attorney. Alice Price knew something, she must know
something, Hammer said. On that belief he based his inten
tion of a motion for a new trial in case of conviction. He
would advance the contention that new evidence had been
discovered ; he would then get Alice Price into a corner by
herself somewhere and make her tell all she knew.

That was why Hammer smiled and felt quite easy, and

314 The Bondboy

turned over in his mind the moving speech that lie had
prepared for the jury. He WHS glad of the opportunity
which that great gathering presented. It was a plowed field
waiting the grain of Hammer's future prosperity.

Hammer kept turning his eyes toward Alice Price, where
she sat in the middle of the court-room beside the colonel.
He had marked an air of uneasiness, a paleness as of
suppressed anxiety in the girl's face. Now and then he saw
her look toward the door where Captain Taylor stood guard,
in his G. A. 11. uniform today, as if it were a gala occasion
and demanded decorations.

For whom could she be straining and watching? Hammer
wondered. Ah, no doubt about it, that girl knew a great
deal more of the inner-working of his client's mind than he
did. But she couldn't keep her secret. He'd get it out of
her after filing his motion for a new trial — already he was
looking ahead to conviction, feeling the weakness of his case
— and very likely turn the sensation of a generation loose
in Shelbyville when he called her to the witness-stand. That
was the manner of Hammer's speculations as he watched her
turning her eyes toward the door.

Ollie sat beside her mother, strangely downcast for all the
brightening of her affairs. Joe had passed through the fire
and come out true, although he might have faltered and
betrayed her if it had not been for the sharp warning of
Alice Price, cast to him like a rope to a drowning man.
Like Hammer, like a thousand others, she wondered why
Alice had uttered that warning. What did she know? What
did she suspect? It was certain, above everything else, that
she knew Joe was guiltless. She knew that he was not
maintaining silence on his own account.

How did she know? Had Joe told her? Ollie struggled
with the doubt and perplexity of it, and the fear which lay
deep in her being made her long to cringe there, and shield

te The Penalty Is Death! " 315

her face as from fire. She could not do that, any more than
she had succeeded in her desire to remain away from court
that morning. There was no need for her there, her testi
mony was in, they were through with her. Yet she could not
stay away. She must be there for the final word, for the last
sight of Joe's prison-white face.

She must whip herself to sit there as boldly as innocence
and cheat the public into accepting the blanched cheek of
fear for the wearing strain of sorrow; she must sit there
until the end. Then she could rise up and go her way, no
matter how it turned out for Joe. She could leave there
with her guilty secret in her heart and the shame of her
cowardice burning like a smothered coal in her breast.

It would hurt to know that Joe had gone to prison for
her sake, even though he once had stepped into the door
way of her freedom and cut off her light. The knowledge
that Alice Price loved him, and that Joe loved her, for she
had read the secret in their burning eyes, would make it
doubly hard. She would be cheating him of liberty and
robbing him of love. Still, they would be no more than even,
at that, said she, with a recurring sweep of bitterness. Had
Joe not denied them both to her? All of this she turned in
her mind as she sat waiting for court to open that somber
morning.

The rain in yesterday's threat had come ; it was streaking
the windows gray, and the sound of the wind was in the trees,
waving their bare limbs as in fantastic grief against the dull
clouds. There was no comfort in youth and health and
prettiness of face and form ; no pride in possession of lands
and money, when a hot and tortuous thing like conscience
was lying so ill-concealed behind the thin wall of her breast.

She thought bitterly of Curtis Morgan, who had failed her
so completely. Never again in the march of her years would
she need the support of his hand and comforting affection as

21

316 The Bondboi]

she needed it then. But he had gone away and forgotten,
like a careless hunter who leaves his uncovered fire after him
to spring in the wind and go raging with destructive curse
through the forest. lie had struck the spark to warm himself
a night in its pleasurable glow; the hands of ten thousand
men could not quench its flame today.

Judge Maxwell had been conferring with the lawyers in
the case these few minutes, setting a limit to their periods
of oration before the jury, to which both sides agreed after
the usual protestations. The court-room was very quiet ;
expectancy sat upon the faces of all who waited when Sam
Lucas, prosecuting attorney, rose and began his address 1o
the jury.

He began by calling attention to what he termed the
" peculiar atrocity of this crime," and the circumstances
surrounding it. lie pointed out that there could have been
no motive of revenge behind the act, for the evidence had
shown, even the testimony of the defendant himself had shown,
that the relations between Chase and his bondman were
fricndlv. Isom Chase had been kind to him; he had re
posed his entire trust in him, and had gone away to serve
his country as a juryman, leaving everything in his hands.

"And he returned from that duty, gentlemen," said he,
" to meet death at the treacherous hands of the man whom
he had trusted, there upon his own threshold.

"When Isom Chase was found there by his neighbor, Sol
Greening, gentlemen, this bag of money was clasped to his
lifeless breast. Where did it come from? What was Isom
Chase doing with it there at that hour of the night? This
defendant has testified that, he does not know. Did Isom
Chase carry it with him when he entered the house? Not

likely.

"You have heard the testimony of the bankers of this city
to the effect that he carried no deposit with any of them.

" The Penalty Is Death!" 317

Isom Chase had returned to his home that fatal night from

: serving on a jury in this court-house. That duty held him

there until past ten o'clock, as the records show. Where did

: that bag of gold come from? What was it doing there? This

I defendant has sworn that he never saw it before, that he

knows nothing at all about it. Yet he admits that ' words '

passed between him and Isom Chase that night.

" What those words were he has locked up in the secret
darkness of his guilty breast. He has refused to tell you
i what they were, refused against the kindly counsel of the
court, the prayers of his aged mother, the advice of his own
attorney, and of his best friends. Joe Newbolt has refused
to repeat those words to you, gentlemen of the jury, but
I will tell you what the substance of them was."

The prosecutor made a dramatic pause ; he flung his long,
fair locks back from his forehead; he leveled his finger at
Joe as if he held a weapon aimed to shoot him through the
heart.

Mrs. Newbolt looked at the prosecutor searchingly. She

could not understand why the judge allowed him to say a

thing like that. Joe displayed no indication of the turmoil

r of his heart. But the light was fading out of his face, the

gray mist of pain was sweeping over it again.

" Those words, gentlemen of the jury," resumed the prose-
i cutor, " were words of accusation from the lips of Isom Chase
.' when he entered that door and saw this man, his trusted
j servant, making away with that bag of money, the hoarded
i savings of Isom Chase through many an industrious
year.

"I tell you, gentlemen of the jury, that this defendant,
afraid of the consequences of his act when he found himself
discovered in the theft, and was compelled to surrender the
money to its lawful owner — I tell you then, in that evil
moment of passion and disappointment, this defendant

318 The Bondboy

snatclicd that rifle from the wall and shot honest, hard
working old Isom Chase down like a dog ! "

"No, no!" cried Mrs. Ncwbolt, casting out her hands in
passionate denial. " Joe didn't do it ! "

" Your honor," began the prosecutor, turning to the court
with an expression of injury in his voice which was almost
tearful, "am I to be interrupted —

" Madam, you must not speak again," admonished the
judge. "Mr. Sheriff, see that the order is obeyed."

The sheriff leaned over.

" Ma'am, I'll have to put you out of here if you do that
agin," said he.

Joe placed his hand on his mother's shoulder and whis
pered to her. She nodded, as if in obedience to his wish, but
she sat straight and alert, her dark eyes glowing with anger
as she looked at the prosecutor.

The prosecutor was composing himself to proceed.

" This defendant had robbed old Isom Chase of his hoarded
gold, gentlemen of the jury, and that was not all. I tell you,
gentlemen, Joe Xcwbolt had robbed that trusting old man of
more than his gold. He had robbed him of his sacred
honor ! "

Hammer entered vociferous objections. Nothing to main
tain this charge had been proved by the state, said he. He
insisted that the jury be instructed to disregard what had
been said, and the prosecutor admonished by the court to
confine himself to the evidence.

The court ruled accordingly.

" There has been ample evidence on this point," contended
the prosecutor. "The conspiracy of silence entered into
between this defendant and the widow of Isom Chase —
entered into and maintained throughout this trial — is suffi
cient to brand them guilty of this charge before the world.
More ; when Sol Greening's wife arrived a few minutes after

re The Penalty Is Death! " 319

the shooting, Mrs. Chase was fully dressed, in a dress, gentle
men of the jury, that it would have taken her longer to
put on —

Merely surmises, said Hammer. If surmises were to be
admitted before that court and that jury, said he, he could
surmise his client out of there in two minutes. But the court
was of the opinion that the evidence warranted the prosecutor
there. He was allowed to proceed.

" Ollie Chase could not have dressed herself that way in
those few intervening minutes. She had made her prepara
tions long before that tragic hour ; she was ready and waiting
— waiting for what?

" Gentlemen, I will tell you. Joe Newbolt had discovered
the hiding-place of his employer's money. He had stolen it,
and was preparing to depart in secrecy in the dead of night ;
and I tell you, gentlemen of the jury, he was not going
alone!"

" Oh, what a scandalous lie ! " said Mrs. Newbolt in a
horrified voice which, low-pitched and groaning that it was,
carried to the farthest corner of that big, solemn room.

The outburst caused a little movement in the room, attend
ed by considerable noise and some shifting of feet. Some
laughed, for there are some to laugh everywhere at the most
sincere emotions of the human breast. The judge rapped for
order. A flush of anger mounted to his usually passive face ;
he turned to the sheriff with a gesture of command.

" Remove that woman from the room, Mr. Sheriff, and
retain her in custody ! " said he.

The sheriff came forward hastily and took Mrs. Newbolt
by the arm. She stood at his touch and stretched out her
hands to the judge.

" I didn't mean to say it out loud, Judge Maxwell, but I
thought it so hard, I reckon, sir, that it got away. Anybody
that knows my Joe —

320 The Bondboy

" Come on, ma'am," the sheriff ordered.

Joe was on his feet. The sheriff's special deputy put his
hands on the prisoner's shoulders and tried to force him
down into his scat. The deputy was a little man, sandy,
freckled, and frail, and his efforts, ludicrously eager, threw
the court-room into a fit of unseemly laughter. The little
man might as well have attempted to bend one of the oak
columns which supported the court-house portico.

Judge Maxwell was properly angry now. He rapped
loudly, and threatened penalties for contempt. When the
mirth quieted, which it did with a suddenness almost tragic,
Joe spoke. " I wish to apologize to you for mother's words,
sir," said he, addressing the judge, inclining his head slight! v
to the prosecuting attorney afterward, as if to include him,
upon second thought. " She was moved out of her calm and
dignity by the statement of Mr. Lucas, sir, and I give you
my word of honor that she'll say no more. I'd like to have
her here by me, sir, if you'd grant me that favor. You can
understand, sir, that a man needs a friend at his side in an
hour like this."

Judge Maxwell's face was losing its redness of wrath ; the
hard lines were melting out of it. lie pondered a moment,
looking witli gathered brows at Joe. The little deputy had
given over his struggle, and now stood with one hand twisted
in the back of Joe's coat. The sheriff kept his hold on Mrs.
Newbolt's arm. She lifted her contrite face to the judge,
tears in her eyes.

"Very well," said the judge, "the court will accept your
apology, and hold YOU responsible for her future behavior.
Madam, resume your seat, and do not interrupt the
prosecuting attorney again."

Mrs. Xcwbolt justified Joe's plea by sitting quietly while
the prosecutor continued. But her interruption had acted
like an explosion in the train of his ideas; he was so much

" The Penalty Is Death! " 321

disconcerted by it that he finished rather tamely, reserv
ing his force, as people understood, for his closing
speech.

Hammer rose in consequence, and plunged into the effort
of his life. He painted the character of Isom Chase in
horrible guise ; he pointed out his narrowness, his wickedness,
his cruelty, his quickness to lift his hand. He wept and
he sobbed, and splashed tears all around him.

It was one of the most satisfying pieces of public oratory
ever heard in Shelbyville, from the standpoint of sentiment,
and the view of the unschooled. But as a legal and logical
argument it was as foolish and futile as Hammer's own fat
tears. He kept it up for an hour, and he might have gone on
for another if his tears had not given out. Without tears,
Hammer's eloquence dwindled and his oratory dried.

Mrs. Newbolt blessed him in her heart, and the irrespon
sible and vacillating public wiped its cheeks clean of its tears
and settled down to have its emotions warped the other way.
Everybody said that Hammer had done well. He had made
a fine effort, it showed what they had contended for all
along, that Hammer had it naturally in him, and was bound
to land in congress yet.

When the prosecutor resumed for the last word he seemed
to be in a vicious temper. He seemed to be prompted by
motives of revenge, rather than justice. If he had been a
near relative of the deceased, under the obligation of exact
ing life for life Avith his own hands, he could not have shown
more vindictive personal resentment against the accused. He
reverted to Joe's reservation in his testimony.

" There is no question in my mind, gentlemen of the jury,"
said he, " that the silence behind which this defendant hides
is the silence of guilt, and that silence brands him blacker
than any confession that his tongue could make.

" ' Words passed between us,' and ' it was between him and

322 The Bondboy

me.' That, gentlemen of the jury, is the explanation this
defendant gives, the only, the weak, the obviously dishonest
explanation, that he ever has offered, or that the kindly ad
monishment of this court could draw from his lips. Guilt
sits on his face; every line of his base countenance is a
confession; every brutal snarl from his reluctant tongue is
testimony of his evil heart. He was a thief, and, when he
was caught, he murdered. 'Out of his own mouth he has
uttered his condemnation,' and there is but one penalty
fitting this hideous crime — the penalty of death!

" Never before has the fair name of our county been
stained by such an atrocious crime ; never before has there
been such a conspiracy between the guilty to defeat the ends
of justice in this moral and respected community. I call
upon you, gentlemen of the jury, for the safety of our
households and the sanctity of our hearths, to bring in your
verdict of guilty under the indictment.

" It is a solemn and awful thing to stand here in the
presence of the Almighty and ask the life of one of his crea
tures, made bv Him in His own image and endowed by Him
with reason and superiority above all else that moves on the
earth or in the waters under it. But this man, Joe Newbolt,
has debased that image and abused that reason and super
iority which raises him above the beasts of the field. He has
murdered a defenseless old man ; he has, by that act and deed,
forfeited his right to life and liberty under the law."

The prosecutor made one of his effective pauses. There
was the stillness of midnight in the crowded court-room. The
sound of dashing rain was loud on the window-panes, the
hoarse voice of the gray old elm which combed the wind with
its high-flung branches, was like the distant groan of the sea.

In that aching silence Ollie Chase turned suddenly, as if
she had heard someone call her name. She started, her
white face grew whiter. But nobody seemed conscious of her

" The Penalty Is Death!" 323

presence, except the prosecutor, who wheeled upon her and
leveled his accusing finger at her where she sat.

There was the bearing of sudden and reckless impulse in
his act. He surely had not meditated that bold challenge of
one who had passed under his merciless hand, and was
now, according to all accepted procedure, beyond his reach
and his concern. But Sam Lucas did that unusual thing.
He stood pointing at her, his jaw trembling as if the intensity
of his passion had palsied his tongue.

"Gentlemen of the jury, what part this woman played in
that dark night's work the world may never know," said he.
"But the world is not blind, and its judgments are usually
justified by time. This woman, Ollie Chase, and this defend
ant have conspired to hold silence between them, in what
hope, to what unholy end, God alone knows. But who will
believe the weak and improbable story this woman has told
on the witness-stand? Who is so blind that he cannot see the
stain of her infidelity and the ghastly blight of that midnight
shadow upon her quaking soul ? "

He turned from her abruptly. Hammer partly rose, as
if to enter an objection. He seemed to reconsider it, and
sat down. Ollie shrank against her mother's shoulders,
trembling. The older woman, fierce as a dragon in the
sudden focus of the crowd's attention and eyes, fixed in one
shifting sweep from the prosecuting attorney to her daughter,
put her arm about Ollie and comforted her with whispered
words.

The prosecutor proceeded, solemnly :

" I tell you, gentlemen, that these two people, Ollie Chase
and Joseph Newbolt, alone in that house that night, alone
in that house for two days before this tragedy darkened
it, before the blood of gray old Isom Chase ran down upon
its threshold, these two conspired in their guilt to hide the
truth.

324 The Bondboy

" If this woman would open her lips, if this woman would
break the seal of this guilty compact and speak, the mystery
of this case would dissolve, and the heroic romance which
this defendant is trying to put over the squalid facts of his
guilt would turn out only a sordid story of midnight lust
and robbery. If conscience would trouble this woman to
speak, gentlemen of the jury — but she has no conscience, and
she has no heart ! '

He turned again to Ollie, savagely ; her mother covered
her with her arm, as if to protect her from a blow.

" There she cowers in her guilty silence, in what hope God
alone knows, but if she would speak "

" I will speak! " Ollie cried.

CHAPTER XXI

OLLIE SPEAKS

OLLIE'S voice, low and steady in earnest determination,
broke Jie current of his denunciation as a knife severs
a straining cord. The suddenness of her declaration almost
made the prosecutor reel. She was sitting up, straight and
outwardly calm, pushing her cloak and other detached
belongings away from her with an unconscious movement of
disencumbering herself for some desperate leap.

"I'll tell everything — if you'll let me — now," said she,
rising to her feet.

She was white and cold, but steady, and sternly resolute.
The prosecutor had not expected that ; his challenge had
been only a spectacular play for effect. Her offer to speak
left him mentally groping behind himself for a support.
It would have been different if he had been certain of what
she desired to say. As she stood before him there, bloodless,
and in such calm of outward aspect that it was almost
hysterical, he did not know whether she was friend or foe.

Joe had not expected it ; the hundreds of spectators had
not looked for that, and Hammer was as much surprised as
a ponderous, barber-minded man could be. Yet he was the
first, of all of them there, to get his wits in hand. The
prosecutor had challenged her, and, he argued, what she had
to say must be in justification of both herself and Joe. He
stood up quickly, and demanded that Ollie Chase be put
under oath and brought to the witness-stand.

Ollie's mother had hold of her hand, looking up into her
face in great consternation, begging her to sit down and keep
still. In general, people were standing, and Uncle Posen

325

326 The Bondboy

Spratt was worming the big end of his steer-horn trumpet
between shoulders of men and headgear of women to hear
what he could not see.

Judge Maxwell commanded order. The prosecuting attor
ney began to protest against the fulfilment of the very tiling
that, with so much feeling and earnestness, lie had demanded
but a minute before.

" Considering this late hour in the proceedings, your
honor— " he began.

Judge Maxwell silenced him with a stern and reproving
look.

"It is never too late for justice, Mr. Prosecutor," said he.
" Let that woman come forward and be sworn."

Hammer went eagerly to the assistance of Ollie, opening
the little gate in the railing for her officiously, putting his
palm under her elbow in his sustaining fashion. The clerk
administered the oath ; Ollie dropped her hand wearily at her
side.

" I lied the other day," said she, as one surrendering at
the end of a hopeless defense, " and I'm tired of hiding the
truth any more."

Joe Newbolt was moved by a strange feeling of mingled
thankfulness and regret. Tears had started to his eyes, and
were coursing down his face, unheeded and unchecked. The
torture of the past days and weeks, the challenge of his
honor, the doubt of his sincerity; the rough assaults of the
prosecuting attorney, the palpable infriendliness of the peo
ple — none of these things ever had drawn from him a tear.
But this simple act of justice on the part of Ollie Chase
moved the deep waters of his soul.

His mother had taken his hand between her rough palms,
and was chafing it, as if to call back its warmth and life. She
was not looking at her son, for her faith had not departed
from him for one moment, and would not have diminished

Ollie Speaks 327

if they had condemned him under the accusation. Her eyes
were on Ollie's face, her lips were murmuring beneath her
breath :

"Thank the Lord for His justice and mercy! Thank the
Lord, thank the Lord!"

Ollie had settled in the witness-chair again, in the midst of
her wide-skirted mourning habit, as on that other day. Joe
Newbolt prayed in his heart for the mitigation of public
censure, and for strength to sustain her in her hour of
sacrifice.

That Ollie had come forward to save him — unasked,
unexpected — was like the comfort of a cloak against the
wintry wind. The public believed that she was going to " own
up " to it now, and to clinch the case against Joe. Some of
them began to make mental calculations on the capacity of
the jail yard, and to lay plans for securing passes to the
hanging.

Hammer stepped forward to question the witness, and the
prosecuting attorney sat down, alert and ready to interpose
in case things should start the wrong way. He had lost
sight of justice completely, after the fixed habit of his kind,
in his eagerness to advance his own prospects by securing
the conviction of the accused.

Ollie sat facing Judge Maxwell, who had turned in his
swivel-chair ; moved out of his bearing of studious concen
tration, which was his usual characteristic on the bench.

"Now, Mrs. Chase, tell your story in your own way, and
take your own time for it," said Hammer, kindly patronizing.

" I don't want Joe to suffer for me," she said, letting her
sad eyes rest on him for a moment. "What he kept back
wasn't for his own sake. It was for mine."

" Yes ; go on, Mrs. Chase," said Hammer as she hesitated
there.

" Joe didn't shoot Isom. That happened just the way he's

328 The Bomlboy

said. I know all about it, for I was there. Joe didn't know
anything about that money. I'll tell you about that, too.''

'"Now, your honor," began the prosecutor complainingly,
"it seems to me that the time and place for evidence of this
nature has gone by. This witness has testified already, and
to an entirely different set of facts. I don't know what influ
ences have been at work to induce her to frame up a new
story, but -

" Your zeal is commendable, Mr. Prosecutor," said the
judge, "but it must not be allowed to obscure the human
rights at hazard in this case. Let the witness proceed."

Ollie shuddered like one entering cold water as she let her
eyes take a flight out over the crowd. Perhaps she saw
something in it that appalled her, or perhaps she realized only
then that she was about to expose the nakedness of her soul
before the world.

"Go ahead, Mrs. Chase," prompted Hammer. "You say
you know about that sack of money?"

" I was taking it away with me," said she, drawing a long
breath and expelling it witli an audible sigh.

She seemed very tired, and she looked most hopeless, piti
able, and forlorn ; still there was no wavering from the task
that she had set for herself, no shrinking from its pain.
" I was going to meet Curtis Morgan, the book-agent man
that vou've asked me about before. We intended to run off
to the city together. Joe knew about it; he stopped me
that night."

She paused again, picking at her fingers nervously.

"You say that Joe stopped you— " Hammer began. She
cut him off, taking up her suspended narrative without spirit,
as one resumes a burden.

"Yes, but let me tell you first." She looked frankly into
Judge Maxwell's eyes.

"Address the jury, Mrs. Chase," admonished Hammer.

Ollie Speaks 329

She turned and looked steadily into the foreman's bearded
face.

" There never was a thing out of the way between me and
Joe. Joe never made love to me ; he never kissed me, he
never seemed to want to. When Curtis Morgan came to
board with us I was about ready to die, I was so tired and
lonesome and starved for a kind word.

" Isom was a hard man — harder than anybody knows that
never worked for him. He worked me like I was only a plow
or a hoe, without any feeling or any heart. Morgan and me
— Mr. Morgan, he — well, we fell in love. We didn't act
right, and Joe found it out. That was the day that Mr.
Morgan and I planned to run away together. He was coming
back for me that night."

" You say that you and Morgan didn't act right," said
Hammer, not satisfied with a statement that might leave the
jurymen the labor of conjecture. " Do you mean to say that
there were improper relations between you? that you were,
in a word, unfaithful to your husband, Isom Chase?"

Ollie's pale face grew scarlet ; she hung her head.

" Yes," she answered, in voice shamed and low.

Her mother, shocked and astounded by this public revela
tion, sat as if crouching in the place where Ollie had left
her. Judge Maxwell nodded encouragingly to the woman who
was making her open confession.

" Go on," said he.

His C3'es shifted from her to Joe Newbolt, who was looking
at Ollie with every evidence of acute suffering and. sympathy
in his face. The judge studied him intently; Joe, his atten
tion centered on Ollie, was insensible to the scrutiny.

Ollie told how she and Morgan had made their plans in the
orchard that afternoon, and how she had gone to the house
and prepared to carry out the compact that night, not
knowing that Joe had overheard them and sent Morgan

.3,30 The Bondboy

away. She had a most attentive and appreciative audience.
She spoke in a low voice, her face turned toward the jury,
according to Hammer's directions. lie could not afford to
have them lose one word of that belated evidence.

"I knew where Isom hid his money," said she, "and that
night when I thought Joe was asleep I took up the loose
hoard in the closet of the room where Isom and I slept and
took out that little sack. There was another one like it,
but I only took my share. I'd worked for it, and starved
and suffered, and it was mine. I didn't consider that I was
robbing him."

" You were not," Hammer assured her. " A wife cannot
rob her husband, Mrs. Chase. And then what did you do?''

" I went downstairs with that money in my hand and laid
it on the kitchen table while I h'xcd my hat. It was dark
in the kitchen, and when I was ready to go to meet Mr.
Morgan in the place agreed on between us, I struck a match
to find my way to the door without bumpin' into a chair or
something and making a noise that would wake up Joe.

" I didn't know he was already up and watching for me
to start. He was at the door when I opened it, and he told
me to light the lamp. I wouldn't do it. I didn't want him to
see me all dressed and ready to leave, and I wanted to trv
to slip that sack of money off the table before he saw it, too.
He came in; I guess he put his hat down on the table in the
dark, and it fell on to}) of the sack.

"When he lit the lamp in a minute you couldn't have told
there was anything under the hat unless you stood in a certain
place, where it showed a little under the brim. Joe told me he
knew all about Morgan and me, and that he'd sent him away.
He said it was wrong for me to leave Isom; he said that
Isom was better than Morgan, bad as he was.

" I flared up and got mad at Joe, but he was gentle and
kind, and talked to me and showed me where I was wrong.

Ollie Speaks 331

I'd kind of tried to make love to Joe a little before that,"
she confessed, her face flushing hotly again, m " before Mr.
Morgan came, that was. I'll tell you this so you'll know
that there was nothing out of the way between me and Joe.

" Joe didn't seem to understand such things. He was
nothing but a boy till the night Isom was killed. He didn't
take me up on it like Morgan did. I know it was wrong in
me ; but Isom drove me to it, and I've suffered for it — more
than I can ever make you understand."

She appealed to the judge in her manner of saying that;
appealed as for the absolution which she had earned by a
cruel penance. He nodded kindly, his face very grave.

" Yes, Mrs. Chase," said Hammer. " And then what did
you do next?"

"Well, while Joe was persuading me to go back to bed I
put my arms around his neck. I wanted to smooth it over
with him, so he'd go to bed first and I could take the money
and put it back, for one thing ; and because I really was
sorr3T for what I'd done, and was ashamed, of it, and felt
lonesome and kicked out, and like nobody didn't care.

" Isom came in and saw us standing there that way, with
my hands on Joe's shoulders, and he rushed up and said:
* I'll kill you!' He said we was standing there hugging each
other, and that we'd disgraced him ; but that wasn't so. It
was all my fault, but Joe didn't tell him that."

"And what did Joe tell him, Mrs. Chase? " asked Hammer,
aglow with the victory which he felt to be already in his
hand. He looked with gloating triumph at the prosecuting
attorney, who sat at the table twirling a pencil in his fingers,
and did not lift his eyes.

" Joe told Isom he was making a mistake, and then Isom
ripped and swore and threatened to kill us both. He looked
around for something to do it with, and he saw that sack of
money under Joe's hat. He jumped for the table and

3,32 The llondboi/

grabbed it, and then he made for the gun. I told Joe to
stop him, and Joe tried. But he was too late. The rest of
it happened just like Joe's already told you."

Ollic's head drooped forward wearily, and her hands lay
passively in her lap. It seemed that she considered the story
concluded, but Hammer was not of that mind.

"After Isom fell- — after the gun went off and Isoni fell —
what did you and Joe do? " lie asked.

" \Ve heard somebody coming in a minute. We didn't
know who it could be, but I was afraid. I knew if it got out
on me about my start to run oil with Morgan, and all the
rest of it, I'd be ruined and disgraced forever.

''Joe knew it too, better than I did. I didn't have to tell
him, and I never even hinted for him to do what he did.
I never even thought of that. I asked him what we'd do,
and he told me to go upstairs and leave him to do the talking.
I went. I was coward enough to go and leave him to bear the
blame. When Joe lied at the inquest to save me, I backed him
up in it, and I stuck to it up till now. Maybe I was a little
mad at him for coming between me and Mr. Morgan, but
that was just a streak. That's the only lie Joe's told, and
you can see he never would have told that to save himself.
I don't want to see him suffer any more for me."

Ollie concluded her recital in the same low, dragging and
spiritless voice in which she had begun it. Conscience whipped
her through, but it could not make her unafraid. Hammer
turned to the prosecutor with questioning eyes. Lucas An
nounced that he did not desire to cross-examine the witness,
and the judge dismissed her.

Ollie went back to her mother. Xo demonstration accom
panied her passing, but a great sigh sounded over the room
as the tenseness of the listening strain relaxed, and the fulness
of satisfaction came in its place.

Mrs. Xewbolt still cluncr to her son's hand. She nodded

Ollic Speaks 333

at the prosecuting attorney with glowing eyes, as if glorying
over him in the moment of his defeat. Alice Price smiled
joyously, and leaned back from her posture of concentration.
The colonel whispered to her, bringing the palms of his
hands together in silent but expressive applause. The
prosecuting attorney stood.

" Your honor — ' he began, but Judge Maxwell, lifting
his head from the reflecting pose into which he had fallen
when Ollie left the stand, silenced him with an impatient
gesture.

" One moment, Mr. Prosecutor," said he.

The prosecutor flushed, and sat down in ruffled dignity.

" I merely wanted to make a motion for dismissal," said he,
sarcastically, as if it was only the merest incidental in the
day's proceedings.

"That is not the procedure," said the judge. "The state
owes it to this defendant to absolve him before the public
of the obloquy of this unfounded and cruel accusation."

" Vindication is what we demand, your honor," said Ham
mer grandly ; " vindication before the world ! "

He spread his arms wide, as if the world stood before him,
fat and big of girth like himself, and he meant to embrace
it with the next breath.

"You shall have it, Mr. Hammer," said the judge. He
turned to the jury. "Gentlemen of the jury, this case has
come to a sudden and unexpected end. The state's case,
prosecuted with such worthy energy and honorable intention,
has collapsed. Your one duty now, gentlemen, is to return a
verdict of not guilty. Will it be necessary for you to retire
to the jury room?"

The jurymen had been exchanging glances. Now the fore
man rose, tall and solemn, with beard upon his breast.

"Your honor, it will not be necessary for the jury to
retire," said he. " We are ready to return our verdict."

334 The Bondboy

According to the form, the foreman wrote out the verdict
on the blank provided by statute; he stood with his fellows
while the clerk of the court read it aloud:

"We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty."

The judge looked down at Joe, who had turned to his
mother, smiling through his tears.

" You are free, God bless you ! " said he.

When a judge says so much more upon the bench than
precedent, form, and custom prescribe for him to say; when
he puts down the hard mask of the law and discovers his
human face behind it, and his human heart moving his warm,
human blood; when a judge on the bench does that, what
can be expected of the unsanctified mob in front of him?

It was said by many that Captain Taylor led the applause
himself, but there were others who claimed that distinction for
Colonel Price. No matter.

While the house did not rise as one man- — for in every
house there are old joints and young ones, which do not
unlimber with the same degree of alacrity, no matter what
the incitement — it got to its feet in surprising order, with
a great tossing of arms and waving of hats and coats. In
the midst of this glad turmoil stood Uncle Posen Spratt,
head and shoulders above the crowd, mounted on a bench,
his steer's horn ear-trumpet to his whiskered lips, like an
Israelitish priest, blowing his famous fox-hound blast, which
had been heard five miles on a still autumn night.

Less than half an hour before, the public would have
attended Joe Ncwbolt's hanging with all the pleasurable and
satisfactory thrills which men draw from such melancholy
events. Now it was clamoring to lift him to its shoulders and
bear him in triumph through the town.

Judge Maxwell smiled, and adjourned court, which order
nobody but his clerk heard, and let them have their noisy
way. When the people saw him come down from the bench

Ollie Speaks 335

they quieted, not understanding his purpose ; and when he
reached out his hand to Joe, who rose to meet him, silence
settled over the house. Judge Maxwell put his arm around
Joe's shoulder in fatherly way while he shook hands with Mrs.
Newbolt. What he said, nobody but those within the bar
heard, but he gave Joe's back an expressive slap of approval
as he turned to the prosecuting attorney.

People rushed forward with the suddenness of water re
leased, to shake hands with Joe when they understood that
the court was in adjournment. They crowded inside the rail,
almost overwhelming him, exclaiming in loud terms of admi
ration, addressing him familiarly, to his excessive embar
rassment, pressing upon him their assurances that they knew,
all the time, that he didn't do it, and that he would come out
of it with head and tail both up, as he had come through.

Men who would have passed him yesterday without a
second thought, and who wrould no more have given their
hands to him on the footing of equality — unless they had
chanced to be running for office — than they would have
thrust them into the fire, now stood there smiling and jostling
and waiting their turns to reach him, all of them chattering
and mouthing and nodding heads until one would have
thought that each of them was a prophet, and had predicted
this very thing.

The old generals, colonels, majors, and captains — that
was the lowest rank in Shelby ville — and the noncommissioned
substantial first citizens of the county, were shaking hands
among themselves, and nodding and smiling, full of the fine
feeling of that moment. It M'as a triumph of chivalry, they
said ; they had witnessed the renaissance of the old spirit, the
passing of which, and the dying out and dwindling of it in the
rising generation, they had so long and lamentably deplored.

There, before their eyes, they had seen this uncouth grub
transformed into a glorious and noble thing, and the only

336 The Bom] hot/

discord in the miraculous harmony of it was the deep-lying
regret that it was not a son of Shelbyville who had thus
proved himself a man. And then the colonels and others broke
off their self-felicitation to join the forward mob in the front
of the room, and press their congratulations upon Joe.

Joe, embarrassed and awkward, tried to be genial, but
hardly succeeded in being civil, for his heart was not with
them in what he felt to be nothing but a cheap emotion. He
was looking over their heads, and peering between their
shoulders, watching the progress of a little red feather in
a Highland bonnet, which was making its way toward him
through the confusion like a bold pennant upon the crest
of battle. Joe pushed through the wedging mass of people
around, and went to the bar to meet her.

In the time of his distress, these who now clamored around
him with professions of friendliness had not held up a hand
to sustain him, nor given him one good word to shore up his
sinking soul. But there was one who had known and under
stood; one whose faith had held him up to the heights of
honor, and his soul stood in his eyes to greet her as lie
waited for her to come. lie did not know what lie would
say when hand touched hand, but he felt that he could fall
down upon his knees as a subject sinks before a queen.

Behind him he heard his mother's voice, thanking the people
who offered their congratulations. It was a great day for
her when the foremost citi/ens of the county came forward,
their hats in their hands, to pay their respects to her Joe.
She felt that he was rising up to his place at last, and coming
into his own.

Joe heard his mother's voice, but it was sound to him now
without words. Alice was coming. She was now just a little
way beyond the reach of his arm, and her presence filled the
world.

The people had their quick eyes on Alice, also, and they

Ollie Speaks 337

fell apart to let her pass, the flame of a new expectation in
their keen faces. After yesterday's strange act, which seemed
so prophetic of today's climax in the case, what was she going
to do? Joe wondered in his heart with them; he tremhled
in his eagerness to know.

She was now at the last row of benches, not five feet distant
from him, where she stood a second, while she looked up
into his face and smiled, lifting her hand in a little expres
sive gesture. Then she turned aside to the place where Ollie
Chase sat, shame-stricken and stunned, beside her mother.

The women who had been sitting near Ollie had withdrawn
from her, as if she had become unclean with her confession.
And now, as Alice approached, Ollie's mother gave her a hard,
resentful look, and put her arm about her daughter as if
to protect her from any physical indignities which Alice
might be bent on offering.

Ollie shrank against her mother, her hair bright above
her somber garb, as if it was the one spot in her where any
of the sunshine of her past remained. Alice went to her
with determined directness. She bent over her, and took her
by the hand.

" Thank you ! You're the bravest woman in the world ! "
she said.

Ollie looked up, wonder and disbelief struggling against
the pathetic hopelessness in her eyes. Alice bent lower. She
kissed the young widow's pale forehead.

Joe was ashamed that he had forgotten Ollie. He saw
tears come into Ollie's eyes as she clung closer to Alice's
hand, and he heard the shocked gasping of women, and the
grunts of men, and the stirring murmur of surprise which
shook the crowd. He opened the little gate in the railing and
went out.

" You didn't have to do that for me, Ollie," said he, kindly ;
'• I could have got on, somehow, without that."

338 The Sandboy

" Both of you — " said Ollic, a sob shaking her breath ; " it
was for both of you ! "

There was a churchlike stillness around them. Colonel
Price had advanced, and now stood near the little group, a
look of understanding in his kind old face. Ollie mastered
her sudden gust of weeping, and shook her disordered hair
back from IHT forehead, a defiant light in her eyes.

"'I don't care now, I don't care what anybody says!"
said she.

Her mother glanced around with the fire of battle in her
eves. In that look she deh'ed the public, and uttered her
contempt for its valuation and opinion. .Mice Price had
lifted her crushed and broken daughter up. She had taken
her bv the hand, and she had kissed her, to show the world
that she did not hold her as one defiled. Judge Maxwell
and all of them had seen her do it. She had given Ollie
absolution before all men.

Ollie drew her cloak around her shoulders and rose to her
feet.

" Remember that ; for both of you, for one as much as the
other," said she, looking into Alice's eyes. "Come on.
Mother; we'll go home now."

Ollie walked out of the court-room with her head up,
looking the world in the face. In place of the mark of tin-
beast on her forehead, she was carrying the cool benediction
of a virtuous kiss. Joe and Alice stood looking after her
until she reached the door ; even the most careless there
waited her exit as if it was part of some solemn ceremony.
When she had passed out of sight beyond the door, the
crowd moved suddenly and noisily after her. For the public,
the show was over.

Alice looked up into Joe's face. There was uncertainty
in his eves still, for he was no wiser than those in their
generations before him who had failed to read a woman's

Ollie Speaks 339

heart. Alice saw that cloud hovering before the sun of his
felicity. She lifted her hands and gave them to him, as one
restoring to its owner something that cannot be denied.

Face to face for a moment they stood thus, hands clasped
in hands. For them the world was empty of prying eyes,
wondering minds, impertinent faces. For a moment they
were alone.

The jurors had come out of the box, and were following
the crowd. Hammer was gathering up his books and papers,
Judge Maxwell and the prosecuting attorney were talking
with Mrs. Newbolt. The sheriff was waiting near the bar,
as if he had some duty yet before him to discharge. A
smile had come over Colonel Price's face, where it spread
like a benediction as Joe and Alice turned to enter the
world again.

" I want to shake hands with you, Joe," said the sheriff,
" and wish 3rou good luck. I always knowed you was as
innercent as a child."

Joe obliged him, and thanked him for his expression, but
there were things in the past which were not so easily wiped
from the memory — especially a chafed ring around his left
wrist, where the sheriff's iron had galled him when he had fret
ted against it during the tense moments of those past days.

Sam Lucas offered Joe his hand.

" No hard feeling, Joe, I hope? " said he.

" Well, not in particular — oh, well, you were only doing
your duty, as you saw it," said Joe.

" You could have saved the county a lot of money, and
yourself and your friends a lot of trouble and anxiety,
if you'd told us all about this thing at the beginning," com
plained Lucas, with lingering severity.

"As for that- — " began Colonel Price.

"You knew it, Miss Price," Lucas cut in. "Why didn't
you make him tell ? "

340 The Kondboi/

" Xo," said Alice, quietly, "I didn't know, Mr. Lucas. I
only believed in him. Besides that, there arc some things
that YOU can't make a gentleman tell!"

''Just so." said Judge Maxwell, coming down from the
bench with his books under his arm.

"Bless your heart, honey," said Mrs. Xewbolt, touching
Alice's hair with gentle, almost reverent hand, "you knew
him better than his old mother did!"

Colonel Price bowed ceremoniously to Mrs. Xewbolt.

" I want YOU and Joe to come home with us for some
refreshment," said he, "after which the bov and I must have
a long, long talk. Mr. Hammer, sir," said he, giving that
astonished lawyer his hand, " I beg the honor of shaking
hands with a rising gentleman, sir!"

CHAPTER XXII

A SUMMONS OF THE NIGHT

THERE was a voice of moaning abroad in the night. It
sounded as the rain swept through the rocking trees and
bent its spears against Judge Maxwell's study windows ; it
sighed in his chimney like an old man turning the ashes of
spent dreams. It was an unkind night for one to be abroad,
for the rain seemed as penetrating as sorrow. Few passed
upon the street beneath the judge's windows where his dim
light glowed.

Now and then the sound of hoofs and wheels rose above
the Avail of the storm, sharp for a moment as it passed, quickly
dimmed, quickly lost. It was a night to be beneath one's
own roof, beside one's own fire, feeling the thankfulness
for such plain comforts which one passes over in the sunny
days.

Judge Maxwell had a fire of hickory wood in his chimney,
and a tall, dark bottle on the small stand at his elbow. On
the long table at his other hand stood his shaded lamp,
pouring its concentrated beams upon his papers and books,
leaving the corners of the room in shadows. The judge sat
with his glass in his hand, studying the fire.

All day, since the adjournment of court, the remarkable
termination of and disclosures in the case of State against
Newbolt had been flowing through his mind; all day, all
evening, the white, strong face of the defendant youth had
stood before his eyes. He could not turn from it, nor forget
the appeal of those grave, gray eyes.

Never before, in his long and honorable life, had the judge
been moved by a case as this had moved him. There was

341

342 The Bondbo?/

nothing in all his rich experience to equal it. In all his
reading —

" Hnni-m-m," said the judge, reflectively, remembering.
He rose slowly and went to the bookcase nearest the fire. lie
took down a leather-bound volume and returned to his chair,
where he sat with his legs crossed, supporting the heavy
book upon his knee. Reflectively he turned the pages, re
flectively he read, shaking his head when he had done.

"No, it is not a parallel," said he. "The matter involved
has only a remote similitude. I do not believe the annals of
jurisprudence contain another case to compare with that of
our own Joe Xewbolt."

The judge put the volume back in its place, pausing at
the table as he returned to his chair to turn down the flame
of the lamp. It was too bright for the judge's mood; it was
inharmonious with the penitential night. Almost like a voice,
strident and in discord above the sobbing music of an orches
tra, thought the judge. The firelight was better for a mood
such as his.

One can see farther back by the soft glow of wood coals,
leaning over and looking into them, than under the gleam
of the strongest lamp. Judge Maxwell had a long vista
behind him to review, and it seemed to him that night that
it was a picture with more shadow than gleam. This day's
events had set him upon the train of retrospection, of moody
thought.

He had seen that boy, Joe Xewbolt, leap out of the ob
scurity of his life into the place of heroes, as he would have
had his own son do, if he could have kept him by his side
and fashioned his life. But that boy was gone; long years
ago he had left him, and none had come after him to stand
in his place. His little, worn books, which he used to sprawl
upon the floor and read, were treasured there on their sacred
shelf behind the bookcase glass. The light had failed out

A Summons of the Night 343

of the eyes which had found wonders in them, more than
thirty years ago.

The lad's mother had followed him ; nobody remained to
the judge now out of those days of his struggle and slow-
mounting hope, save old Hiram, his negro man, a family
servitor since the times of slavery, and he was trembling on
the limb to fall.

Yes, that was the way that he would have had his own
boy stand, true to a trust, faithful in his honor, even under
the beam of the gallows-tree ; stand as that lad Joe Newbolt
had stood, unschooled though he was in everything but that
deep sense of duty devolving on one born free. Such nobility
was the peculiar birthright of the true American.

Scarcely behind Joe Newbolt stood that hitherto weak
woman, Ollie Chase. It called for courage to do what she
had done. She had only to keep her peace, and hide whatever
pity she felt and pain she suffered on account of the lad
who stood ready to sacrifice his life for her, to proceed upon
her way clean in the eyes of men. She must have endured
the tortures of hidden fires through those weeks of uncertainty
and suspense, thought he.

Yes, Ollie Chase had her own nobility; the laurel was due
her poor, smirched brow, just as much as it was to Joe New-
bolt's lofty forehead. Contrition doubtless played its part
in driving her to open confession, and the pain of concealment
must have been hard to bear. But there was an underlying
nobility in that woman's heart which had urged her on
stronger than all. It is a spark in the breast of even the
most debased, thought the judge, which abnegation and
sacrifice often kindle into a beautiful flame.

And there was Alice Price, with her fine intuition and
sublime faith. What a white soul that strong young woman
had, said he ; what a beautiful and spotless heart. In that
kiss which she had stooped to press on the young widow's

344 The Bondboi/

forehead she had wiped away the difference which Ollie's sin
had set between her and other women. It was an act of
generosity without ostentation, which lie doubted whether
Alice Price herself was aware of in its farthest significance.
It was the spontaneous act of womanly sympathy and un
conscious charity.

What Ollie Chase had said to them as they stood before
her, Judge Maxwell did not know, but what was written in
their young faces as they turned from watching her go, the
whole world might have read — if it had been as watchful
nnd wise as he. What a fitting mate she was for that young
lion, Joe Xcwbolt, thought the judge; such a mate, indeed,
as he would have chosen for his own son if God had seen
fit to give him that transcendent joy.

Judge Maxwell found himself greatly concerned about Joe
Newbolt's future. He wondered what he would make of it
if left to go about it in his own way; what he would make of
it if properly armed and encouraged. He followed that
speculation a long way down the future, building dimly, but
pleasantly, in his dream.

A ring sounded at the front door.

Judge Maxwell did not even withdraw his eyes from the
fire. Some lawyer over in one of the other two counties
embraced in that circuit telegraphing to ask some favor of
delay, or favor of something else. To ask a favor, certainly ;
lawyers never telegraphed to confer favors. Old Hiram,
dozing by the kitchen stove, would hear.

Presently old Hiram's shuffling feet sounded along the hall
outside Judge Maxwell's study door. The outer door opened
and closed. Old Hiram came into the judge's room, a candle
in his hand.

"There's a man wishin' to see you, judge, sah," he an
nounced.

Judge Maxwell started from his reverie. In the minute

A Summons of f;tc ^igJi-t 345

that had passed between the ring at the door and the entry
of Hiram, he had put the visitor out of his head.

"A gentleman to see me, Hiram? Who is it? "

" No, sah ; I don't think he's 'zactly a gentleman, sah. I
don't know who he is ; he nevah give me no card, sah, but he's
moughty sploshed and blustery lookin'."

"Well— " the judge rose, halting his speech as if thinking
of one thing and speaking of another — " fetch him in here,
Hiram."

" He's drippin' and drappin' like a leaky pail, sah," said
Hiram, shaking his cottony old head.

" No matter ; he'll do no harm, Hiram."

Hiram brought the visitor in. The judge advanced to
meet him.

The stranger's rubber coat glistened in the light, and the
hat that he carried in his hand trickled a little stream on the
carpet as he crossed the room. Old Hiram lingered at the
door, holding his candle aloft.

The stranger stopped midway between Judge Maxwell and
the door, as if uncertain of his welcome, or conscious just
at that moment of his drenched and dripping state. He was
a tall man and sparely built, and his light-colored wet hair
lay in little ringlets against his temples. His mustache was
short and stubby. His garments were splashed with mud, as
if he had come a long distance over rough roads. There
was a haggard and harried look in the man's eyes ; he
seemed at the highest pitch of nervous tension. His lips
were set in a grim line, as if he struggled to hold something
from utterance. His eyes were wide and wild.

" Judge Maxwell," he began, looking around him from side
to side in quick starts, " I must apologize to you for coming
into your house in this condition, and for this late call. But
I'm hero on important business ; I ask you to give me a
few minutes of your time alone."

34(> The Bondboy

The judge nodded to Hiram, who closed the door after him.

" Take oil' tliat wet coat — give me your hat, and sit here,"
said the judge, pulling a chair around to the fire.

The visitor drew oil' his rubber garment.

" Thank you, sir," said he. " My name is Morgan, and
I've come over hell's highway, as the man said, to get to
Shelbyville tonight."

"Not Curtis Morgan?" said Judge Maxwell, lifting his
eves in startled surprise, staying the stream of liquor that he
was decanting into a glass.

" Yes. You've heard my name before tonight, I see," the
visitor said.

""Just so," replied the judge, in his studious way. "Drink
this, unless you have scruples?"

" It looks to me like a life-preserver to a drowning man,"
said Morgan, with a glimmer of his every-day facctiousncss.
He drained the glass; the judge motioned for him to sit down.
Morgan did so, and stretched his wet feet to the fire.

"I've got a story to tell you, Judge Maxwell," said he,
again casting his quick, almost fearful look around, "that
will sound to you, maybe, like a wild-eyed dream. But I want
to tell you right now, it ain't no dream — not bv a million
miles! I wish it was," he added, with a serious twist of
the head.

"Go on," said the judge.

" I've hurried here, Judge Maxwell, to do what I can in
the name of justice and humanity," Morgan said. "That
boy, Joe Xewbolt, on trial here before you for the murder
of old man Chase, is innocent. That boy is telling the truth.
Judge, and I'll stake my neck on that. I've got a storv to
tell you that will clear up all he's holding back, and I'll tell it,
if I swing for it ! "

Morgan was greatly agitated. He stopped there, looking
earnestly into the judge's face.

A Summons of the Night 347

" Why have you waited so long? " asked the judge, sternly.

Morgan leaned over, clutching at the judge's arm.

"Am I too late — is it over — have they convicted him?"
he asked.

" Yes, it's over," nodded the judge, studying Morgan's
face narrowly.

A' Merciful heavens ! " said Morgan, springing to his feet,
looking around for his coat and hat. "We must stop this
thing before it's too late, Judge — I tell you we must stop it !
Isn't there some way — have they convicted Joe? "

" Sit down, Morgan, and calm yourself. Hold your feet
out to the blaze and dry them," the judge admonished, kindly.

"What's happened?" asked Morgan, wildly, not heeding
the command.

" You shall hear it all in time," promised the judge.
" Sit down here and tell me what you've been doing all these
weeks. Where have you been?"

" Judge, I've been over in Saint Joe selling books," said
Morgan, " and I'll tell you the truth, Judge, I never intended
to come back here." He turned and faced the judge, leaning
forward earnestly, his face white. He lowered his voice to a
hoarse whisper. " But I had to come back — I was sent back
by — by a voice!"

" Just so," nodded Judge Maxwell.

" You may think it's a pipe-dream, Judge, but it ain't.
It's the solemn truth, if I ever told it in my life. I intended
to let Joe Newbolt go on and carry what he'd picked up, and
then when he was out of the way in the pen, or worse, maybe,
I intended to hunt Ollie up and marry her. I didn't want
that business that Joe Newbolt's been keeping back let out
on her, don't you see, Judge? It concerns her and me,
Judge ; it ain't the kind of a story a man's folks would want
told around about his wife, you understand?"

The judge nodded.

23

348 The Bondboy

"All right,"' said Morgan, wiping his forehead, which v, as
beaded with sweat. ''Last night along about ten o'clock I
was in my room reading the account in the paper of how Joe
had refused on the stand yesterday to tell anything, and how
a voung woman had stood up in the court-room and backed
him up and encouraged him in his stand. I was reading along
comfortable and all right, when I seemed to hear somebody
call me by my name.

" I tell you I seemed to hear it, for there wasn't a soul in
that room but myself, Judge. But that voice seemed to sound
as close to my car as if it come out of a telephone. And it
was a woman's voice, too, believe me or not, Judge!"

" Yes? " said the judge, encouragingly, still studying Mor
gan's face, curiously.

"Yes, sir. She repeated my name, 'Curtis Morgan,' just
that way. And then that voice seemed to say to me, ' Come
to Shelbyville; start now, start now!'

" Say, I got out of my chair, all in a cold sweat, for I
thought it was a call, and I was slated to pass in my checks
right there. I looked under everything, back of everything
in that room, and opened the door and took a dive down the
hall, thinkin' maybe some swift guy was tryin' to put one
over. Nobody there. As empty, Judge, I tell you, as the
pa'm of my hand! But it's no stall about that voice. I
heard it, as plain as I ever heard my mother call me, or the
teacher speak to me in school.

"I stood there holding onto the back of my chair, my legs
as weak under me as if I'd stayed in swimmin' too long. I
didn't think anything about going to Shelbyville, or anywhere
else, but hell, I guess, for a minute or two. I tell you,
Judge, I thought it was a call!"

Morgan was sweating again in the recollection of that
terrible experience. lie wiped his face, and looked around the
room, listened as the rain splashed against the window, and

A Summons of the Night 349

the wind bent the branches of the great trees beside the wall.

" Well? " said Judge Maxwell, leaning forward in his turn,
waiting for Morgan's next word.

" I tell you, Judge, I kept hearing that thing in my eai1
that way, every little while, till I threw some things in my
grip and started for the depot. There wasn't any train out
last night that'd fetch me within fifty miles of here. I
went back to my room and went to bed. But it didn't let up
on me. Off and on, all night, just about the time I'd doze off
a little, I'd seem to hear that voice. I went to the depot this
morning, and caught the eight o'clock train out. I'd 'a' made
it in here at two this afternoon if it hadn't been for a washout
between here and the junction that put the trains on this
branch out of service.

" I took a rig and I started to drive over. I got caught in
the rain and lost the road. I've been miles out of my way,
and used up three horses, but I was bound to come. And I'm
here to take my medicine."

"I see," said the judge. "Well, Morgan, I think it was
the voice of conscience that you heard, but you're no more
to blame than any of us, I suppose, because you failed to
recognize it. Few of us pay enough attention to it to let it
bother us that way."

" Believe me or not, it wasn't any pipe-dream ! " said Mor
gan, so earnestly that the flippancy of his slangy speech did
not seem out of place. " It was a woman's voice, but it
wasn't the voice of any woman in this world ! "

" It's a strange experience," said the judge.

"You can call it that!" shuddered Morgan, expressive of
the inadequacy of the words. "Anyhow, I don't want to hear
it again, and I'm here to take my medicine, and go to the
pen if I've got to, Judge."

Judge Maxwell put out his hand, impatiently.

" Don't try to make yourself out a martyr, Morgan," said

350 The Bondboj/

he. " You knew — and you know — very well that you hadn't
done anything for which you could be punished, at least not
by a prison sentence."

"Well, I don't, know," said Morgan, twisting his head
argumcntatively, as if to imply that there was more behind
his villainy than the judge supposed, "but I thought when
a feller got to foolin' with another man's wife —

"Oh, pshaw! " cut in the judge. " You're thinking of it as
it should be, not as it is. The thing that you're guilty of,
let me tell you for your future guidance and peace, is only a
misdemeanor in this state, not a felony. In a case like this
it ought to be a capital offense. You've shown that there's
something in you by coming back to take your medicine, as
you say, and voice or no voice, Morgan, I'm going to give
you credit for that."

"If the devil ever rode a man!" said Morgan.

"No, it was far from that," reproved the judge.

" It got me goin', Judge," said Morgan, scaring up a
little jerky laugh, "and it got me goin' right! It stuck to
me till I got on that train and headed for this town, and I'll
hear the ring of it in mv ear to mv last — what's that?"

Morgan started to his feet, pale and shaking.

"It was the wind," said the judge.

" Well, I'm here, anyhow, and I came fast as I could,"
said Morgan, appealingly. "Do you think it'll stick to me,
and keep it up? "

"Why should it?" said the judge. "You've done your
duty, even though whipped to it."

"If the devil ever whipped a man !" breathed Morgan, "I'm
that man."

Judge Maxwell had doubted the man's sanity at first,
when he began to talk about the voice. Now he only mar
veled at this thing, so elusive of all human science to explain,
or human philosophy to define. He recalled an experience

A Summons of the Night 351

of a friend — one who had been for many years court stenog
rapher — who, in a distant city, had been impelled to seize
his pencil on a certain night, and write a message which he
seemed to hear plainly dictated into his ear by one in
Shelbyville. As soon as the post could carry a message to
the man whose voice the stenographer had heard, he was
asked about the telepathic communication. He at once
mailed to the man who had taken it down, more than two
thousand miles away, the identical message, word for word.
It had been an experiment, he said.

Perhaps something like that had occurred in Morgan's
case, or perhaps the man merely had dreamed, a recurring
dream such as everybody has experienced, and the strong
impression of his vision had haunted him, and driven him to
the act. And perhaps someone of vigorous intellect and
strong will had commanded him. Perhaps — no matter. It
was done.

Morgan was there, and the record of justice in the case of
state against Newbolt was about to be made final and
complete.

*' You say it's all over, Judge," spoke Morgan. " What
did they do with Joe?"

"What happened in court today," said Judge Maxwell,
rising to his feet, " you would have heard if you had been
there. But as you were not, it is not for me to relate. That
is the privilege of another, as the matter of your condemna
tion or acquittal is in other hands than mine."

" I know I acted like a dog," admitted Morgan, sincerely
contrite, "both to Ollie and to Joe. But I'm here to take
my medicine, Judge. I thought a lot of that little woman,
and I'd 'a' made a lady of her, too. That was it. Judge ;
that was at the bottom of this whole business. Ollie and I
planned to skip out together, and Joe put his foot in the mess
and upset it. That's what the fuss between him and old

3,32 The Bofidboy

Isom was over, you can put that down in your book, Judge.
I've got it all lined out, and I can tell you just "

" Never mind ; I think I understand. You'd have made a
lady of her, would you? But that was when she was clean,
and unsuspected in the eyes of the world. How far would
your heroism go, Morgan, if you met her in the street tonight,
bespattered with public scorn, bedraggled with public con
tempt, crushed by the discovery of your mutual sin against
that old man, Isom Chase? Would you take her to your
heart then, Morgan? Would you be man enough to step out
into the storm of scorn, and shoulder your part of the load
like a man? "

" If I found her in the lowest ditch I'd take her up, Judge,
and I'd marry her — if she'd have me then!" said Morgan,
earnestly. " WThen a man's careless and free, Judge, he sees
things one way; when he comes up on a short rope like this,
he sees them another."

"You are right, Morgan," said the judge.

He walked the length of the room, hands clasped behind
his back, his head bent in thought. When he came back to
the fire he stood a little while before Morgan, looking at
him with intent directness, like a physician sounding for a
baffling vagary which lies hidden in the brain.

There was a question in his face which Morgan could not
grasp. It gave him a feeling of impending trouble. He
shifted uneasily in his chair.

" Stay here until I return," commanded the judge. " I shall
not be long."

" I'm here to take my medicine," reiterated Morgan,
weakly. " I wouldn't leave if the road was open to me,
Judge"."

Judge Maxwell went to the door, calling for Hiram. Hirum
was not far away. His candle was still burning; he came
bobbing along the hall with it held high so he could look

A Summons of the Night 353

under it, after the manner of one who had been using candles
all his life.

" My overcoat, Hiram, and my neck shawl," ordered the
judge. He turned to Morgan, who was standing on the
hearth.

" Wait for me, I'll not be long away."

" It's a blusterin' and a blowin' mighty bad, Judge. I'll
get my coat "

" No, no, Hiram ; there's something for you to do here.
Watch that man ; don't let him leave."

" He ain't gwine a-leave, Judge, sah," said Hiram with
calm significance.

Hiram held up the great frieze coat, and the judge plunged
his arms into it. Then the old negro adjusted the shawl
about his master's shoulders, and tucked the ends of it inside
the coat, buttoning that garment over them, to shield the
judge's neck from the driving rain.

The judge turned back into the room to throw another
stick on the fire. The lamp was burning low ; he reached over
to turn up the wick. The flame jumped, faltered, went out.

" Hah, I've turned it out, Morgan. Well, no matter.
You'll not need more light than the fire throws. Make your
self comfortable, Morgan."

With a word to Hiram, the judge opened the door and
stepped out into the night.

On the pavement the wind met him rudely, and the rain
drove its cold arrows against his kind old face. Wonderful
are the ways of Providence, thought Judge Maxwell, bend
ing his head to bring his broad hat-brim to shield his face, and
complete are the accounts of justice when it is given that
men may see them down to the final word.

The wind laid hold of the judge's coat, and tugged at it
like a vicious dog; it raged in the gaunt trees, and split in
long sighs upon the gable-ends and eaves. There was nobody

354 The Bondboy

abroad. For Shelbyvillc the hour was late; Judge Maxwell
had the street to himself as he held on his way.

Past the court-house he fought the wind, and a square
beyond that. There he turned down a small street, where
the force of the blast was broken, looking narrowly about
him to right and left at the fronts of houses as he passed.

Simeon Harrison, Ollie Chase's father, lately had given
over his unprofitable struggle with the soil. He had taken
a house near the Methodist church and gone into the business
of teaming. He hauled the merchants' goods up from the
railroad station, and moved such inhabitants of Shelbyville
as once in a while made a change from one abode to another.

Sim had come to Shelbyville with a plan for setting up a
general livery business, in which ambition he had been en
couraged by Ollie's marriage to Isom Chase, to whom he
looked, remotely, for financial backing. But that had turned
out a lean and unprofitable dream.

Since Isom's death Ollie had returned to live with her
parents, and Sim's prospects had brightened. He had put
a big sign in front of his house, upon which he had listed the
many services which he stood ready to perform for mankind,
in consideration of payment therefor. They ranged from
moving trunks to cleaning cisterns, and, by grace of all of
them, Sim was doing very well.

When Sim Harrison heard of his daughter's public con
fession of shameful conduct with her book-agent boarder, he-
was a highly scornful man. He scorned her for her weakness
in yielding to what he termed the " dallv-f addle " of the book-
agent, and he doubly scorned her for repudiating her former
testimony. The moral side of the matter was obscure to
him ; it made no appeal.

His sense of personal pride and family honor was not
touched by his daughter's confession of shame, any more than
his soul was moved to tenderness and warmth for her honest

A Summons of the Night 355

rescue of Joe Newbolt from his overhanging peril. He was
voluble in his declarations that they would " put the screws "
to Ollie on the charge of perjury. Sim would have kept his
own mouth sealed under like circumstances, and it was beyond
him to understand why his daughter had less discretion than
her parent. So he bore down on the solemn declaration that
she stood face to face with a prison term for perjury.

Sim had made so much of this that Ollie and her mother
were watching that night out in fear and trembling, sitting
huddled together in a little room with the peak of the roof
in the ceiling, a lamp burning between them on the stand.
Their arms lay listlessly in their laps, they turned their
heads in quick starts at the sound of every footfall on the
board walk, or when the wind swung the loose- jointed gate
and flung it against its anchorings. They were waiting for
the sheriff to come and carry Ollie away to jail.

In front of Sim Harrison's house there was a little porch,
not much bigger than a hand held slantingly against its
weathered side, and in the shadow of it one who had ap
proached unheard by the anxious watchers through the
blustering night, stood fumbling for the handle of a bell.
But Sim Harrison's door was bald of a bell handle, as it
was bare of paint, and now a summons sounded on its thin
panel, and went roaring through the house like a blow on
a drum.

Mrs. Harrison looked meaningly at Ollie ; Ollie nodded,
understandingly. The summons for which they had waited
had come. The older woman rose in resigned determination,
went below and opened the door.

" It is Judge Maxwell," said the dark figure which stood
large and fearful in Mrs. Harrison's sight. " I have come to
see Mrs. Chase."

" Yes, sir ; I'll call her," said the trembling woman.

Ollie had heard from the top of the stairs. She was

3.5 0 The Bondboy

descending in the darkness, softly. She spoke as her mother
turned from the door.

"I was expecting you — some of you," said she.

"Very well, then," said Judge Maxwell, wondering if that
mysterious voice had worked another miracle. " Get vour
wraps and conic with me."

Mrs. Harrison began to groan and wail. Couldn't they let
the poor child stay there till morning, under her own
mother's roof? It was a wild and terrible night, and Lord
knew the poor, beaten, bruised, and weary bird would not fly
awav !

"Save your tears, madam, until they are needed," said
the judge, not feeling that he was called upon to explain the
purpose of his visit to her.

" I'm ready to go," announced Ollie, hooded and cloaked
in the door.

Sim Harrison was stirring about overhead. He came to
the top of the stairs with a lamp in his hand, and wanted to
know what the rumpus was about.

"It's Judge Maxwell — he's come for Ollie!" said his wife,
in a despairing wail.

"I knowed it, I knowed it!" declared Sim, with fatalistic
resignation, above which there was perhaps a slight note
of triumph in seeing his own prediction so speedily fulfilled.

To Harrison and his wife there was no distinction between
the executive and judicial branches of the law. Judge or
sheriff, it was all one to them, each being equally terrible
in their eyes.

" When can she come home, Judge, when can she come
back?" appealed Mrs. Harrison, in anguished pleading.

"It rests with her," returned the judge.

He gave Ollie his arm, and they passed together in silence
up the street. They had proceeded a square before the judge
spoke.

A Summons of the Night 357

" I am calling you on an unusual mission, Mrs. Chase, " he
said, "but I did not know a better way than this to go about
what I felt it my duty to do."

" Yes, sir," said she. Pie could feel her tremble as she
lightly touched his arm.

They passed the court-house. There was a light in the
sheriff's office, but they did not turn in there, and a sigh for
that temporary respite, at least, escaped her. The judge
spoke again.

" You left the court-room today before I had a chance to
speak to you, Mrs. Chase. I wanted to tell you how much
I admired your courage in coming forward with the state
ment that cleared away the doubt and tangles from Joe
Ncwbolt's case. You deserve a great deal of credit, which I
am certain the public will not withhold. You are a brave
little woman, Ollie Chase."

There it was again ! Twice in a day she had heard it,
from eminent sources each time. The world was not a bleak
desert, as she had thought, but a place of kindness and of
gentle hearts.

" I'm glad you don't blame me," she faltered, not knowing
what to make of this unexpected turn in the night's adventure.

"A brave little woman!" repeated the judge feelingly.
"And I want you to know that I respect and admire you for
what you have done."

Ollie was silent, but her heart was shouting, leaping, and
bounding again in light freedom, as it had lifted that morning
when Alice Price had spoken to her in her despair. At last,
she said, with earnestness :

" I promise you I'll be a good woman, too, from now on,
Judge Maxwell, and I'm thankful to you for your kind
words."

"We turn in here — this is my door," said the judge.

Mystified, wondering what the next development of this

3.58 The Bondboy

strange excursion into the night would be, but satisfied in
her mind that it meant no ill for her now, Ollie waited while
the judge found the keyhole, for which he groped in the dark.

"Arid the matter of the will was all disposed of by the
probate judge today, I hear," said the judge, his hand on
the door.

"Yes, sir."

"Then your life is all before you, to make of it what you
will," said he1, placing his hand on her shoulder, as she stood
with him in the dim hall. lie opened the study door. The
wood on the grate was blazing brightly. Ollie saw someone
standing before it, bending slightly forward in the pose of
expectation. lie was tall and of familiar figure, and the
firelight was playing in the tossed curls of his short, fair hair.

"In there," said the judge, "if you care to go."

Ollie did not stir. Her feet felt rooted to the floor in the
wonder and doubt of this strange occurrence.

"Ollie!" cried the man at the hearthstone, calling her
name imploringly. lie came forward, holding out pleading
hands.

She stood a moment, as if gathering herself to a resolution.
A sob rose in her throat, and broke from her lips transformed
into a trembling, sharp, glad cry. It was as if she had cast
the clot of sorrow from her heart. Then she passed into the
room and met him.

Judire Maxwell closed the door.

CHAPTER XXIII

LEST I FORGET

MRS. NEWBOLT was cutting splints for her new sun-
bonnet out of a pasteboard box. She hitched her
chair back a little farther into the shadow of the porch, for
the impertinent sun was winking on her bright scissors,
dazzling her eyes.

It was past the turn of the afternoon ; a soft wind was
moving with indolence among the tender leaves, sleepy from
the scents of lilac and apple bloom which it had drunk on
its way. And now it loitered under the eaves of the porch
to mix honeysuckle with its stream of drowsy sweets, like a
chemist of Araby the Blest preparing a perfume for the
harem's pride.

There was the gleam of fresh paint on the walls of the
old house. The steps of the porch had been renewed with
strong timber, the rotting siding had been replaced. Mrs.
Newbolt's chair no longer drew squeaks and groans from
the floor of the porch as she rocked, swaying gently as her
quick shears shaped the board. New flooring had been laid
there, and painted a handsome gray; the falling trellis
between gate and door had been plumbed and renewed.

New life was everywhere about the old place, yet its old
charm was undisturbed, its old homeliness was unchanged.
Comfort had come to dejection, tidiness had been restored
to beauty. The windows of the old house now looked upon
the highway boldly, owing the world nothing in the way
of glass.

Where the sprawling rail fence had lain for nearly forty
years, renewed piecemeal from time to time as it rotted

359

360 The Hondboi/

away, its corners full of brambles, its stakes and riders
overrun with poison-vine; where this brown, jointed structure
had stretched, like a fossil worm, a great transformation
had come. The rails were gone, the brambles were cleared
awav, and a neat white fence of pickets stretched in front of
the house. This was flanked on either hand by a high fence
of woven wire, new to that country then, at once the wonder
of the old inhabitants, the despair of prowling hogs and the
bewilderment of hens. There was a gate now where the old
gap had been; it swung shut behind one with an eager little
spring, which startled agents and strangers with the sharp
ness of its click.

The shrubbery had been cleared of dead wood, and the
underlying generations of withered honeysuckle vines which
had spread under the green upon the old trellis, had been
taken away. Freshness was there, the mark of an eager,
vigorous hand. The matted blue grass which sodded the yard
had been cut and trimmed to lines along the path. A great
and happy change had come over the old place, so long
under the shadow. People stopped to admire it as they

" Well, well ; it's the (loin's of that boy, Joe Ncwbolt ! " they
said.

Mrs. Newbolt paused in her clipping of bonnet slats to
make a menacing snip at a big white rooster which came
picking around the steps. The fowl stretched his long neck
and turned his bright eve up to his mistress with a slanting
of the head.

"How did you git out of that pen, you old scalawag?"
she demanded.

The rooster took a long and dignified step away from
her, where he stood, with little appearance of alarm, turning
his head, questioning her with his shining eye. She made a
little lunw- with her shears.

Lest I Forget 361

" Yes, I'm goin' to tell Joe on you, you scamp ! " she
threatened.

" Coo-doot-cut! " said the rooster, looking about him with
a long stretching of the neck.

" Yes, you better begin to cackle over it," said she, speaking
in solemn reproof, as if addressing a child, " for Joe he'll
just about cut your sassy old head clean off! If he don't
do that, he'll trim down that wing of yourn till you can't
bat a skeeter off your nose with it, you redick-lous old
critter ! "

But it was not the threat of Joe that had drawn the cry
of alarm from the fowl. The sound of steps was growing
along the path from the front gate, and the fowl scampered
off to the cover of the gooseberry vines, as Mrs. Newbolt
turned to see who the visitor was. The scissors fell from her
lap, and her spool trundled off across the porch.

" Laws, Sol Greening, you give me a start, sneakin' up
like that ! "

Sol laughed out of his whiskers, with a big, loose-rolling
sound, and sat on the porch without waiting to be asked.

" I walked up over the grass," said he. " It's as soft under
your feet as plowed ground. They say Joe's got one of them
lawn-cutters to mow it with?"

"Well, what if he has?" she wanted to know. "He's got
a good many things and improvements around here that you
folks that's lived here for seventy years and more never seen
before, I reckon."

" He sure is a great feller for steppin' out his own way ! "
marveled Sol. " I never seen such a change in a place inside
of a year as Joe's made in this one — never in my mortal
horned days. It was a lucky day for Joe when Judge Max
well took a likin' to him that way."

Mrs. Newbolt was looking away toward the hills, a dreamy
cast in her placid face.

362 The Bondboy

"Yes," said she, "there's no deny-in' that. But Joe he'd
'a' got along. Judge Maxwell or no Judge Maxwell. Only
it'd 'a' been slower and harder for him."

"lie would 'a'," nodded Sol, without reservation. "No
discountin' on that. That boy beats anything this here
country ever perduced, barrin' none, and I ain't savin' that,
either, ma'am, just to please you."

"Much thanks I owe you for what you think of Joe!"
said she, scornfully. "You was ready enough, not so very
long ago, to set the whole world ag'in' him if you could."

" Well, circumstantial evidence— " began Sol.

"Oh, circumstantial nest-eggs!" said she, impatiently.
" You'd known Joe all his life, and you know very well he
didn't shoot Isom Chase any more than you done it yourself! "

"Well, mistakes is humant," sighed Sol, taking advantage
of that universal absolution. "They say Judge Maxwell's
goin' to leave everything he's got to Joe, and he's got a
considerable, I reckon."

" I don't know as Joe'd take it," said she, folding her
hands in her lap. "Judge Maxwell had a hard time to git
Joe to let him put in the money to do things around here,
and send him to college over in Shelbyville last winter. Joe
let him do it on the understandin' that it was a loan, to be
paid interest on and paid back when he was able."

"Well, from the start he's makin' it don't look like the
judge 'd have very long to wait for his money," said Sol.
"Twenty acres of apple trees all in a orchard together, and
twenty acres of strawberries set out betwixt and between the
rows ! "

He looked over the hillside and little apron of valley where
Joe's young orchard spread. Each tiny tree was a plume of
leaves; the rows stretched out to the hilltop, and over.

"I can figger out how twenty acres of apples can be
picked and took care of," reflected Sol, as if going over with

Lest I Forget 363

himself something which he had given thought to before, " but
I'll be durned if I can figger out how any man's goin' to pick
and take care of twenty acres of strawberries ! "

" Joe knows," said his mother.

" Well, I hope he does," sighed Sol, the sigh being breathed
to give expression of what remained unspoken. No matter
what his hopes, his doubts were unshaken.

No man had ever taken care of twenty acres of straw
berries — nor the twentieth part of one acre, for that mat
ter — in that community. No man could do it, according to
the bone-deep belief of Sol and his kind.

" Joe says that's only a little dab of a start," said she.

" Cree-mo-nee ! " said Sol, his mouth standing open like a
mussel shell in the sun. " Whcn'll they be ripe?"

" Next spring."

"Which?" queried Sol, perking his head in puzzled and
impertinent way, very much as the rooster had done a little
while before him.

" Next spring, I said," she repeated, nodding over her
bonnet, into which she was slipping the splints.

"No crop this 3rear?"

"No; Joe says it weakens the plants to bear the first
year they're set. It takes the strength away from the roots,
he says. He goes through the field and snips off every bloom
he sees when he's hoein' among 'em, and I help him between
times. We don't git all of 'em, by a mighty sight, though."

Sol shook his head with wise depreciation.

" Throwin' away money," said he.

"Did you ever raise any strawberries?" she inquired,
putting down the bonnet, bringing Sol up with a sharp look.

" Reckon I raised as many as Joe ever did, and them mainly
with a spoon," said Sol.

The joke was not entirely new; it could not have been
original with Sol by at least three hundred years. But it did

24

364 The liondboy

very well as an excuse for Sol to laugh. He was always
looking for excuses to laugh, that was the one virtue in him.
Without his big laugh he would have been an empty sack
without a bottom.

"Joe got them rows mighty purty and straight," said
Sol, squinting along the apple trees.

" Yes, he set 'em out accordin' to geog'aphy," said she.

"Which?" said Sol.

"Ge-og'a-phy, I said. Didn't you never hear tell of that
before neither, Sol Greening?"

"Oh," said Sol, lightly, as if that made it all as plain
to him as his own cracked thumbs. " How much does Joe
reckon he'll git off of that patch of berries when it begins
to bear?"

" I never heard him say he expected to make anything,"
said she, " but I read in one of them f ruit-growin' papers he
takes that they make as much as three hundred dollars an
acre from 'em back in Ellinoi."

Sol got up, slowly ; took a backward step into the yard ;
filled his lungs, opened his mouth, made his eyes round.
Under the internal pressure his whiskers stood on end and his
face grew red. "Oh, you git out!" said he.

" I can show it to you in the paper," she offered, making
as if to put aside her sewing.

Sol laid a finger on his palm and stood with his head bent.
After a bit he looked up, his eyes still round.

" If he even makes a hundred, that'll be two thousand
dollars a year ! "

It was such a magnificent sum that Sol did not feel like
taking the familiarity with it of mentioning it aloud, lie
whispered it, giving it large, rich sound.

"Why, I reckon it would be," said she, offhand and care
less, just as if two thousand a year, more or less, mattered
very little to Joe.

Lest I Forget 365

" That's more than I ever made in my whole dad-blame
life," said Sol.

"Well, whose fault is it, Sol? " asked she.

" I don't believe it can be done ! "

" You'll see," she assured him, comfortably.

"And Joe he went and stuck to the old place," reflected
Sol. " He might 'a' got some better land for his sperimentin'
and projeckin' if he'd 'a' looked around."

" He was offered land, all the land a man could want,"
said she. " Ollie wanted him to take over the Chase home
place and farm it when she and Morgan married and left, but
Joe he said no; the Newbolts had made their failures here,
he said, and here they was goin' to make their success. He
had to redeem the past, Joe said, and wipe out the mistakes,
and show folks what a Newbolt can do when he gits his foot
set right."

" He'll do it, too," said Sol, without a reserved grudge or
jealousy; "he's doin* it already."

"Yes, I always knew Joe would," said she. "When he
was nothing but a little shaver he'd read the Cottage Encyclo-
pedy and the Imitation and the Bible, from back to back. I
said then he'd be governor of this state, and he will."

She spoke confidently, nodding over her work.

" Shucks ! How do you know he will ? "

Sol's faith was not strong in this high-flying forecast. It
seemed to him that it was crowding things a little too far.

" You'll live to see it," said she.

Sol sat with his back against a pillar of the porch, one
foot on the ground, the other standing on the boards in
front of him, his hands locked about his doubled knee. He sat
there and looked up at the Widow Newbolt, raising his eye
brows and rolling his eyes, but not lifting his head, which
was slightly bent. "Well, what's to be's to be," said he.
"When's he goin' to marry?"

366 The Kondboy

" When he's through goin' to college."

"That'll be two or three years, maybe?"

" Maybe."

" Hum ; Alice Price she'll be gettin' purty well along by
that time."

"She's not quite a year older than Joe," Mrs. Newbolt
corrected him, with some asperity, " and she's one of the kind
that'll keep. Well, I was married myself, and had a baby,
when I was nineteen. But that's no sign."

" Joe'll build, I reckon, before then?" guessed Sol.

" No ; Alice don't want him to. She wants to come hero
a bride, to this house, like I come to it long, long ago. We'll
fix up and make ready for her, little by little, as we go along.
It'll be bringin' back the pleasure of the old days, it'll be like
livin' my courtship and marriage over. This was a fine;
house in the days that Peter brought me here, for Peter, hi.'
had money then, and he put the best there was goin' into it."

"It looks better than any house around here now, since
you fixed it up and painted it," said Sol.

" It's better inside than outside," said she, with a woman's
pride in a home, which justifies her warmth for it. "We had
it all plastered and varnished. The doors and casin's and all
the trimmin's are walnut, worth their weight in gold, now,
almost, Judge Maxwell says."

" Yes, the curly walnut's all gone, years and years ago,"
said Sol.

" It passed away with the pioneers," sighed she.

"I suppose they'll build in time, though?" Sol said.

" I 'low they will, maybe, after I'm gone," said she.

"Well, well"!" said Sol. He sat silent a little while. "Folks
never have got over wonderin' on the way she took up with
Joe," he said.

Mrs. Newbolt flashed up in a breath.

"Why should anybody wonder, I'd like for you to tell

Lest I Forget 367

me?" she demanded. "Joe he's good enough for her, and
too good for anybody else in this county ! Who else was
there for Joe, who else was there for Alice?"

Sol did not attempt to answer. It was beyond him, the
way some people figgcred, he thought in the back of his mind.
There was his own girl, Tilda Bell. He considered her the
equal to any Newbolt that ever straddled a horse and rode
over from Kentucky. But then, you never could tell how
tastes run.

"Well, reckon I'll have to be rackin' out home," said he,
getting up, tiptoeing to take the cramp out of his legs.

" Yes, and I'll have to be stirrin' the pots to get supper
for my boy Joe," she said.

The smoke from her kitchen fire rose white as she put in
dry sumac to give it a start. It mounted straight as a plume
for a little way, until it met the cool air of evening which
was beginning to fall. There it spread, like a floating silken
scarf, and settled over the roof. It draped down slowly over
the walls, until it enveloped the old home like the benediction
of a loving heart.

The sun was descending the ladder of the hills ; low now
it stood above them, the valley in shadow more than half its
breadth, a tender flood of gold upon the slope where the new
orchard waved its eager shoots ; the blessing of a day was
passing in the promise of a day to come.

Out of the kitchen came the cheerful sound of batter for
the corn bread being beaten in the bowl, and with it Sarah
Newbolt's voice in song :

Near the cross, O Lamb of God

The beating of the batter dimmed the next line. Then it
rose to the close

Let me walk from day to day,
With its shadow o'er me.

368 The Bondboy

The clamp of the oven door was heard, and silence followed.

Sarah was standing on the porch again wiping her hands
on her apron, looking away toward the fields. The sun was
dipping now into the forest cresting the hills; the white
rooster was pacing the outside of the wire enclosure from
which he had escaped, in frantic search of an opening to
admit him to his perch, his proud head all rumpled in his
baffled eagerness, his dangling wattles fiery red.

The smoke hail found the low places in garden and lawn,
where it hovered; a dove wailed from the old orchard, where
a pair of them nested year after year; a little child-wind
came with soft fingers, and laid them on the waiting woman's
hair.

Her face quickened with a smile. Joe was coming home
from the field. Over his shoulder he carried his hoe, and as
he came on toward her in yard-long strides his mother thought
of the young soldiers she had seen march away to the war,
carrying their guns in that same free confidence of careless
strength. His hat was pushed hack from his forehead, the
collar of his hlue flannel shirt was open. His boyish sus
penders had been put away in favor of a belt, which was
tight-drawn about his slim waist.

Very trim and strong, and confident he looked, with the
glow of youth in his cheeks, and the spark of happiness in his
gray eyes. He was well set in the form of a man now, the
months since his imprisonment having brought him much
to fasten upon and hold.

Joe made the same great splashing that he had made on
that spring evening of a year gone by, when he came home
from work to step into the shadow which so quickly grew
into a storm. But there was no shadow ahead of him this
night ; there was no somber thing to bend down the high
serenity of his happy heart.

He stood before the glass hung above the wash bench and

Lest I Forget 369

smoothed his hair. Mrs. Newbolt was standing by the stove,
one of the lids partly removed, some white thing in her hand
which she seemed hesitating over consigning to the flames.

"What 've you got there, Mother?" he asked cheerily as
he turned to take his place at the waiting table.

" Laws," said she, in some perturbation, her face flushed,
holding the thing in her hand up to his better view, " it's that
old paper I got from Isom when I — a year ago ! I mislaid
it when the men was paintin' and plasterin', and I just now
run across it stuck back of the coffee jar."

For a moment Joe stood behind her, silently, looking over
her shoulder at the signature of Isom Chase.

" It's no use now," said she, her humiliation over being
confronted with this reminder of her past perfidy against
her beloved boy almost overwhelming her. "We might as
well put it in the stove and git it out of sight."

Joe looked at her with a smile, his face still solemn and
serious for all its youth and the fires of new-lit hope behind
his eyes. He laid his hand upon her shoulder assuringly, and
closed the stove.

" Give it to me, Mother," said he, reaching out his hand.

She placed the bond of his transference to Isom Chase in
it, and those old heart-wrung tears of hers, which had been
dry upon her cheeks now for many a happy day, welled, and
flowed down silently.

Joe folded the paper.

" I'll keep it, Mother," said he, " so that it will stand as a
reminder to me in prosperity that I was once poor and in
bondage ; and in my happiness that it may tell me of the days
when I was forsaken and in prison, with only my mother's
faithful hand to comfort me.

" I'll put it away and keep it, Mother, lest in my prosperity
some day I may forget the Lord ; forget that He giveth, and
that He taketh away, also ; that His hand chastiseth in the

370 The Bondboy

same measure that it bestows blessings upon us. I'll leave it
up here, Mother, on the old shelf; right where I can see it
everv time I take down the Book."

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